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Queen of Thieves Box Set: A Grimdark Sword and Sorcery Fantasy Thief Adventure
- Defenders of Legend, Box Set 3
- Narrated by: Rebecca McKernan
- Length: 39 hrs and 46 mins
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Publisher's Summary
They killed her family. They ripped apart her home. But to repay her debts, she'll have to sacrifice her innocence.
Three gripping novels of grim, dark intrigue in the underworld of thieves and cutthroats!
Robbed of everything she loves, Viola mourns the sudden loss of her mother. Now burdened with an impossible debt to the Night Guild, she’s forced to train as a cunning thief. Subjected to cruelty at every turn, the scrawny criminal apprentice vows to survive long enough to become the kingdom’s best.
Thrown together with unlikely allies, her burgeoning skills draw the attention of sadistic bullies and jealous rivals with dark intentions. But fueled by grief-filled rage, Viola won’t let anything distract her from preparing for the Guild’s most treacherous test.
In a cutthroat den of thieves, can Viola rise to power and outrun a brutal death?
The gripping Queen of Thieves epic fantasy series is not for the faint of heart. If you like grim dark battles, improbable heroines, and graphic scenes, then you’ll love Andy Peloquin’s unflinching coming-of-age tale.
Listen to Queen of Thieves for a pitch-black tale of a thievery today!
Warning: This book contains one scene of graphic sexual assault and is not suitable for all ages.
From the Author: This Omnibus is a self-contained, stand-alone series set in the same world as Defenders of Legend number one and number two, but can be listened to either before or after. Chronologically, it occurs before the events of the previous collections.
In the Queen of Thieves Box Set Audiobook:
Child of the Night Guild (Book 1)
Thief of the Night Guild (Book 2)
Queen of the Night Guild (Book 3)
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What listeners say about Queen of Thieves Box Set: A Grimdark Sword and Sorcery Fantasy Thief Adventure
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Amazon Customer
- 01-04-21
Disappointment
Absolutely loved the first book. Some parts bored me, but honestly it needed all of the detail to set the tone and I wouldn't want anything taken out. I admire the character that was created in book one. Determined, willing to admit when she needs help but still self-sufficient enough. She was strong, yet could admit her failures and USE THEM to better herself to become stronger. She didn't let things warp her mentally, she was amazing (and there were a plethora of things that could have damaged her beyond repair). I was SO EXCITED to continue the series and see where this character's life goes.
Then book 2.
All men bad pretty much sums it up, and that is frustrating when she has so many supportive and helpful men around her. Men that she ultimately turns on. No one can be trusted. Even those keeping her deepest secrets. I just don't understand why her closest friends are all of the sudden untrustworthy and constantly making her "cringe ". Its annoying.
Author destroyed the main character and I can't even finish the series. I don't want to get into spoilers so I'll keep the novel of injury to myself. It's not often I have to abandon a book without finishing it, this is sadly one of those. Don't get me wrong, the plot itself is still good, but the main character is not who we met in book one and I just don't care about whether she succeeds or not anymore.
Voice actor was spectacular. Loved her range and consistency.
7 people found this helpful
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- H.M.S. Brown
- 04-17-20
Ilanna's Adventure is not to be missed!
Listening on Audible as part of the Queen of Thieves trilogy. Narrated by Rebecca McKernan.
I’ve been watching this author for a while now, but this is my first book. I’m already listening to book #2, but wanted to share a few thoughts here first. This book covers the childhood Viola and her entry into and initial training of the Night Guild. The Night Guild is a thieves guild in the city of Praamis. Children are brought there – for whatever reasons, (orphans, children sold by parents to pay debts, etc) and are trained to forget their former lives as well as to be pick pockets. Training is based on sensory deprivation and other cruelty, their only comfort coming from each other through that shared experience.
Once finishing the initial “training” the children are tested and chosen by houses within the Guild to learn their specific skill set as apprentices. As Viola learns her new skills, she makes new friends / allies in her house and becomes quite skilled. Throughout the book she learns new skills, gets to better know the other thieves in her house and has to continue dealing with the bully from her original training group.
The book ends with Viola, now Ilanna, does the Undertaking – a self-chosen challenge to “graduate” her apprenticeship and become a Journeyman. It involved a very steep climb that made me, the reader, incredibly nervous as I listened! At one point, I hit pause just to calm my nerves! Oh it was fantastic!!!
Side observations:
• The title of the book seemed to have been yelled, but once the actual story started, that wasn’t the case. Just the title.
• I found it confusing from time to time not really able to gauge how old she was. Time passed and occasionally someone’s name day would be mentioned, but she was 8 at the beginning and I’m guessing late teens at the end. In between – it was a little hard to gauge.
• The narrator was terrific. I really enjoyed listening to her. I have no idea how she kept track of all the voices, but she did a fantastic job with them. Rebecca McKernan did a great job and I look forward to listening to her in the next two books of the trilogy.
Trigger Warning: The story includes a violent sexual assault towards the end of the book. (Admittedly, using both violent and assault in the same sentence is redundant) While it is intensely-written, it is not gratuitously described.
Audio Book was sent to me as an ARC for which I’m voluntarily leaving an honest review.
4 people found this helpful
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- John
- 03-24-20
A dark, riveting series about a thief
Queen of Thieves is a dark, riveting series about a girl growing up in a world of criminals and becoming a master thief. The stories are dark with beloved characters dying cruel deaths at the drop of the hat.
Recommended for mature readers due to violence and sexual content.
The narrator of the audiobooks does a very good job bringing the books to life.
I received a complimentary copy of this audiobook. This is my honest and voluntary review.
3 people found this helpful
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- Donna
- 04-17-20
Immersive adventure
I was pulled in from the beginning until the very end! The characters, world and plot are very well developed and omg the emotions! Rebecca McKernan also did an amazing job narrating these books. The story kept me on the edge of my seat needing to know what comes next through all the plot twists. This as all of Andy Peloquin's works I've read this far is highly unpredictiable. Definately recommend giving this a listen!
2 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 02-21-20
my opinion
Loved it good story held my interest thru out all three books would recommend to anyone who enjoys dark fantasy
2 people found this helpful
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- Dottie
- 11-21-19
I want more!!!
This story is amazing! I sometimes felt the narrator at times was a bit much, bet the story is so good, you can overlook it.
2 people found this helpful
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- Mark E Prudom
- 02-16-21
Young girl raised by thieves...
I stumbled across this as a box set and thought to give it a try. very happy I did. the story moves from one mishap to adventure. reminds me of the Lies of Locke Lamore.
1 person found this helpful
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- Allie McAllister
- 01-09-21
Abuse, graft and gore
These books are hard to put down, but also hard to read (or listen to). There is always action, intrigue, triumph over adversity, conspiracy, machination and plots within plots. However, there is also an over abundance of cruelty, child abuse, savagery, vicious atrocities and horrifying sadism. I struggled through the first two books but I couldn't take anymore so I skipped to the last chapter of the last book to see if anything came out ok in the end to salvage this story. You will have to decide for yourself if this is a good series or an evil one. There is no in-between.
1 person found this helpful
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- Nevy81
- 11-25-20
Predictable and really bad narration.
The first book is the best but the second and third book is narrated in a room with horrible echo. The third is not as bad as the second but it's not good either. For the most part she does an ok job narrating but towards the end of the second and into the third she has a rough time. There's three words used over and over in the book and she says it so weird and awkwardly different each time. Overall it was an ok trilogy but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
1 person found this helpful
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- Alon Shalev - Elfwriter
- 08-30-20
Excellant Trilogy
My first introduction to author, Andy Peloquin. I found the first novel a little slow, to be honest, but never considered skipping or giving up. The series just got better and better as the protagonist grew up. His world-building is excellant and he mixes Grimdark with hope, which is not easy.
Great series.
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- Gillian M
- 05-11-20
Stupendous, gripping, emotional, grimdark fantasy!
The ‘Queen of Thieves’ box set comprises ‘Child of The Night Guild’, ‘Thief of The Night Guild’ and ‘Queen of the Night Guild’. Andy Peloquin has created a masterpiece of descriptive writing with an intricate storyline burgeoning with thrilling action, suspense, intrigue, a rollercoaster of emotions and such vividly drawn characters. This is a superb three-dimensional work of art that draws you into its heart so that you experience everything as if you are there. And what an edge-of-the-seat experience it is! It is not for the faint-hearted as it does contain graphic scenes of cruelty and violence, but that is to be expected in grimdark fantasy. This epic box set is wonderful as an audiobook (narrated by Rebecca McKernan) and is beyond doubt a compulsive listening experience.
I was hooked from the start, drawn deep into the world of the Night Guild which we experience through the eyes of Viola (designated number Seven by the really creepy and cruel Master Velvet and subsequently she becomes Ilanna when she is allowed to take a name again). The feelings of sorrow, anxiety, heartache, anger, fear and joy that she experiences in her struggle through her apprenticeship (from age eight to eighteen) to survive and prove her worth to the guild as a successful thief are so palpable.
Ilanna’s tremendous willpower enables her to survive her brutal apprenticeship with the Night Guild to become a Journeyman of House Hawk and a very successful thief. Unfortunately, once the Night Guild has you, it doesn’t want to let you go, although it may agree to let you buy your freedom. However, the more successful you are, the higher the price will be as the Night Guild will be looking for compensation for lost future revenue. Ilanna desperately wants to secure her freedom because she has secretly given birth to a son, whom she has kept hidden, and she does not want him to be discovered and forced to undergo the same apprenticeship that she did. With the cost of her freedom being set ridiculously high, Ilanna hatches a highly complex plan. She has to put together a crew of hand-picked Guild members from various Houses whom she must pay for their participation in the preparation for and execution of a daring theft from Duke Phonnis whilst still making enough out of the job to meet price of her freedom. All that on the assumption that the heist will actually be successful in spite of what appear to be insurmountable obstacles.
Ilanna is a force to be reckoned with. Many within the Night Guild are jealous of her success and the special interest that Master Gold takes in her. The Bloody Hand want her removed because they recognise that she poses a threat to their plan to take over the Night Guild. lIanna loses her home to a deliberately set, fast spreading, incredibly hot chemical fire and believes her son and friend to have been consumed by it. A traitor within the Night Guild has engineered it so that she will believe that Bryden, a Journeyman from House Hawk, is responsible for this in collaboration with the Bloody Hand. This same traitor has also laid a false trail of ‘evidence’ of larceny which results in a gruesome death sentence being passed on Ilanna but, with aid from an unexpected source, she manages to escape. From here Ilanna sets out to track down the traitor, whilst also coming up with an audacious and extremely dangerous plan to drive the Bloody Hand out of the Night Guild and the city. Catastrophe and chaos follow in spades as the plot makes its way through a mind-boggling maze of twists and turns. In amongst all this, Ilanna discovers the truth behind the creation and purpose of the Night Guild – and what a revelation that is.
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- Longears
- 02-15-20
Grips you like a hawk.
I'm so glad I stuck with this story. More so that I took the time to listen to the set. I have spent some very late nights in the grip of this adventure. The trials are brutal, and it pulls no punches. In some respects the heroine is hard to like but steathily you find yourself coming to admire and respect her. The narration only gets better as the story progresses, and by the finish you are a little sad to leave this world.
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- L Maugh
- 01-29-20
Haunting and gripping.
Although this story is dark the narrator does an excellent job with the sensitive nature that involves in some parts of this book. I enjoyed the book. The audio version is excellent. The narrator does a wonderful job with the voices and accents.
She makes it very easy to imagine the characters with her voice. As Ilanna and characters age, the narrator is sure to change up the voices along with their age.
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- Neil
- 07-19-22
brilliant and annoying too, poor audio quality
This trilogy taken at the high level is a well constructed tale with twists and suspense never shutting away from unconformable truths. It is not however without frustrations, the endless recounting of past incidents used to underline a frame of mind for the protagonist becomes quite tedious. We're quite used to the need to recap in a series; publishers, I believe, insist upon it; but we very quickly understand the mindset of our lead character and do not need the constant repetition.
The narration is for the most part enjoyable, the early years are a little trying with the childlike voice not quite working for me. the energy can be distracting at times with the narration all but shouted, yet the effect overall is good.
the plotline is complex and twists nicely in places throwing you off guard but reads a little like the Chap book genre, with constant cliff hanger moments of impossible escape. the lead character is intelligent, eloquent and cunning, yet frequently too stupid to see the blindingly obvious and even at the end I'm unsure if this makes her more human or more implausible.
all of the above resolves to an enjoyable dark fantasy romp that I'd recommend. however the production audio quality is some of the worst I have put up with be ready for whole chapters when the narrator sounds like she's preaching from a soap box across the other side of them room.
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- Kate Carlin
- 09-10-21
Jarring & irksome
So, although it was a bit repetitive I did enjoy some aspects of it. However there was one major plot point that was drastically under developed which continually came up; it irritated me to no end and affected my overall enjoyment of the book.
It was very jarring as realistically there would have been some incredibly complicated and difficult emotions surrounding it which weren't even touched upon, despite the fact that the character seemed to be experiencing PTSD (although never specified as such several symptoms were there). It was over simplified and brushed over with what was quite frankly a completely inadequate explanation of the characters reasoning and no insight into the complex emotions it would have provoked, despite a focus on several other aspects of emotional turmoil related to the situation.
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- MrsT
- 03-25-21
Enthralling
I will be listening to this one agsin. I was a bit put off at first by the very short sentences. I confess I nearly gave up; Suddenly the characters were alive, and I could see myself as seven. To travel with her through this story was entralling. Best listen in a while.
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- Steve T.
- 02-26-21
A fun world with great characters
Don't have a lot to say about this book
I really enjoyed the characters but found the plot a little predictable
Great as a first delve into the genre, but probably a bit repetitive for fantasy veterans.
Excellent effort.
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- Carly G
- 02-23-21
Great story, awful narration
This book took for..ever to get through! And it was entirely down to the absolutely awful narration and mispronounciations....I gave up on this book several times, leaving months in between picking it up again. In the end, I found speeding up the narration (almost to the point of being too quick to follow) made it easier to tolerate. It's such a shame as the story itself was really quite good and well written.
The only way I'd recommend this to anyone would be if the narrator was someone like the amazing Andrea Parsneau or Tim Gerard Reynolds! If you really want to enjoy the story, buy the physical book and read it the old fashioned way!
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- bad man
- 02-15-21
pretty good
decent story, repetitive and predictable at times but a satisfying none the less. Narration was a bit annoying.
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- Styphon
- 11-07-20
Dark, gritty, painful, gripping.
Andy Peloquin is a master with the written word. This trilogy gripped me from start to finish. Our protagonist is forged through the fires of suffering, determination driving her ever forward. The only negative I have to say about this series is that the two major reveals at the end were obvious, but it was nice being proven right.
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- Nikki Logan
- 02-15-21
Great worldbuilding makes up for structural flaws
I found this (audio) series a bit of a conundrum. Peloquin's worldbuilding, characters and story are very solid but the story may have benefitted from a more ruthless edit and different narrator. Book 1 (think of it as alternate reality Oliver Twist) gets off to a very slow and repetitive start. It took me about 18 chapters to get into it. Perhaps fortunately it kept auto-starting every time I got in the car and that kept me with it which meant I got to stick around when the worldbuilding started to gather momentum. Then I really started getting into it. Book 2 (think of it as alternate reality Oceans 11) is a much better read if you ignore some gob-smackingly glossed over major moments. And Book 3 (alternate reality Game of Thrones) is an absolute blood-bath but has a cracking pace and brings everything together for a satisfactorily complex ending.
There are a couple of reading challenges for me in this series - I'm going to be oblique (because spoilers)...
1) the major character is a challenge to like throughout. I think this was exacerbated by the narrator who lacked nuance - she had only two modes when it came to the heroine's dialogue - Snippy and saccharine. As a result, I felt like I'd spent 40 hours being shouted at by an annoying teen. I wonder if I'd read the book instead of listening to it if I might have been able to immerse in some of that nuance which might have helped me to appreciate the character a bit more.
2) Book 2 introduces what feels like an afterthought subplot and characters designed to increase the stakes but I would have gladly dispensed with some of the minutiae in the start of Book 1 to make space to deal with this major event in the story rather than relegating it to 'months later' backstory whomp. I honestly don't think it needed it. Ilana's relationships with her fellow-thieves did a good job of showing her personal growth without needing to see it reflected in some new characters who then felt like little more than plot devices.
3) A terrible thing happens in Book 1 which de-rails the protagonist just as she's finding her way. I didn't enjoy reading it but I can see why it was necessary for the story. Unfortunately, Ilana's reaction to that event is *such* a cliche. Again no nuance. Having said that, it was more than plenty to fuel her actions from then on rendering the plot-device characters mentioned above (book 2) even more unnecessary.
Seriously, I just wanted to take to this story with a red pen and address the sub-plot and pace issues so that I could just enjoy the author's great story and worldbuilding. Must have been quite a feat to write with all those layers. I will read another of Peloquin's works to see if maybe the passage of time has smoothed out his later books.
(But I will 100% not listen to another book by this narrator, I'm afraid.)
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- Geoff Sharp
- 06-19-22
A worthy listen
Hard going at times due to the content matter but moments of ecstatic joy and a few treats - lots of twists and turns. Really well read
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- Anonymous User
- 07-10-21
Absolute Shite
How did this even get published. I have always finished a book even if it was bad but I won't be finishing this. Waste of money and I actually resent the fact I paid for it.
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- Kindle Customer
- 01-13-21
Great book
Absolutely loved this story was drawn in for all three books. Thoroughly enjoyed the reading and was happy with the way the story concluded.