Fun fantasy advenutre

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Ever since her brother’s sickness, Princess Kirit, aka Kit, has been forced to take on the role of Crown Princess. Unfortunately, she doesn’t fit in. As a child, she spent more time with the animals in the stable and learning how to swordfight than running a country. One fateful evening, when all of the Crown Princes and Princesses are visiting for a ball, the Prince of Antor, Prince Andric kidnaps all of them and takes them back to his kingdom. Right as they get there, an avalanche occurs, and the group is forced to spend winter in Antor until the mountain pass clears. As time passes, Kit finds herself getting chummy with the princes and princesses as well as Andric. She also discovers that she likes the people of Antor and, like them, can talk to animals. As she comes of age and grows up, she saves the kingdom and its people a couple times over. When spring comes, however, the people of Antor will have to leave their homeland due to lack of resources. Determined to find a solution for everyone, Kit begins writing home. Although her brother is getting better, her parents are stubbornly not listening to Kit’s pleas to take some of Antor’s people in. To make things even more interesting, Kit starts falling in love with Andric, but if her brother doesn’t continue to get better, she and Andric will have no chance together. Will Kit find a way to save Antor and continue her relationship with Andric? Will she get her parents to see sense?

Narrator, Michele Carpenter is a unique, funny, entertaining narrator ideally suited for this book. Her unique voices for the character bring to life their personalities. Although the narration was a little slow at the beginning, it picked up and here transitions were smooth. The plot is a little predictable, but enjoyable. The characters are well-developed and the dynamic that grows between them is amazing and engaging. Readers who like fantasy, adventure, and a little bit of romance will enjoy listening to this book.

4 people found this helpful

Outstanding YA adventure!

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The audio version of Thief Prince is fantastic! It is a YA fantasy adventure, with a side story about how love conquers all. It was very easy to slip into the story and escape my dull commute to work while listening to it.

Thief Prince starts off when the heroine, Kit, agrees to be the heir of her kingdom after her brother is too sick to do so. Soon after, Kit is "kidnapped" by Andric, the Prince of Antor, who wants Kit and other royals he has taken to experience the devastation his country is experiencing at the hands of the other kingdoms over the course of one winter. Unlike the other royals, Kit makes the most of her situation and learns from her ordeal and helps out where needed.

Michele Carpenter's narration really brought the characters to life, completely drawing me into the story. She uses a variety of voices, giving all characters their own unique voice. Michele seamlessly switches between genders and characters with ease. Simply put Thief Prince was a great listen and I highly recommend it!

2 people found this helpful

Super nice princess saves more than a kingdom.

Where does Thief Prince rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

It's pretty good. The narration was professional. The story engaging.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Thief Prince?

Andric and Kit becoming friends. Their conversations were often intense in one way or another.

Have you listened to any of Michele Carpenter’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No. But I would not hesitate to listen to other books narrated by her.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Close. Daily work prohibited listening to all in one sitting.

Any additional comments?

Princess Kit, second born to her kingdom, grew up riding, sword fighting, and spending more time with ‘common folk’ than her brother, heir to the throne. However, he becomes ill and it is grim. Kit is elevated to heir status and is forced to hang out with other kingdom heirs, much to her despair. Once a year, all the Crowns (heirs to the thrones) of several small nations gather to socialize. This year, they had the extra treat of ostracizing Kit, seeing her as a stand in and inferior. One night, they gather and things change drastically. They are all kidnapped and forced on a horseback journey of several days as winter draws near. Prince Andric, defacto ruler of the dying nation Antor, has determined that the only way to ave his people and his kingdom is to kidnap the Crowns and hold them as ‘guests’ for the winter.

Kit, who has a longer and much more formal name that she hates, is nice to everyone. In fact, if I have any complaint at all about this book it is that Kit is inhumanely nice, making her character a little unreal. She’s nice to her parents and ill brother (which is cool) but she is also nice to the snotty royalty she is forced to hang out with, including the Thief Prince (who later turns out to be a decent type). But I enjoyed this book greatly and I told my nit-picking self to ignore this character flaw. She’s in her late teens and has acquired many useful skills by not having to sit around being royal all day. These come in to great use once the thieving commences.

The other Crowns have a range of snobbish behavior going on. A few of them are friendly towards Kit even if they don’t see her as an exact equal (and they sure as blue blood aren’t dancing with any commoners at the Antor winter ball). Other Crowns are cruel in their comments and pretty darn hostile to anyone of inferior status. I liked that there was this range because it made them more human. They each reacted a bit differently to their kidnappings and each character grew, even if it was just a smidge.

Prince Andric, who has been ruling the kingdom since his mother died (his father fell into deep grief upon her passing and then stepped right into dementia), is making one last desperate play to save his people. His kingdom has only a single valuable export, diamonds, and the mines have run dry. There are also allegations that some of Antor’s neighboring kingdoms stole from Antor, weakening the kingdom still further. Of course, many of the Crowns didn’t want to hear that. The land of Antor can’t support so many people much longer and Andric and his people may have to leave their kingdom. The relentless attacks of the Brazens, human raiders gone wild and vicious, Antor’s population is in desperate straights indeed.

Now, for the magic. And I loved this bit. Many Antorans have a gift for communicating with animals. An Antoran will notice during their teen years that they have an affinity towards a species of animal. For some, it is horses, others it is most birds. They bond deeply with the animals they communicate with, often seeing through their eyes, and develop lasting friendships. For Andric, it is a small wolf pack. There’ more to this magic, but I will leave that for you to discover. It was very well done in this story.

While Thief Prince has a good solid ending, I was hoping there was a sequel. There’s room to grow with this world that Alsop has created and I very much hope she revisits it at some point.

Narration: Carpenter did an excellent job. She had the perfect voice (that of a quickly maturing young lady) for Kit. Her male and female voices were distinct, making it easy to keep characters straight. She conveyed emotion quite well and I often was engrossed in a scene.

1 person found this helpful

A Great Young Adult Story

While most young adult novels can be quite formulaic and become very boring quickly, the Thief Prince is not one of those. Wonderfully crafted characters, with rich backgrounds; an entire world created for them and a story that compels the listener to continue on sets this book far above many in the genre.

Michele Carpenters voice is a complete joy to listen to. Her character voice development was good - it was very easy to differentiate the characters from one another, and her delivery style is flawless. Great tone and great skill! I would most definitely look for more titles by this narrator.

1 person found this helpful

Book and audio were well done!

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Actually I will probably buy it in kindle form for my god-daughter. She enjoys a good fantasy book and it was clean. The major characters had values that I try and teach my kids and my GD so it's a book I'm willing to purchase and recommend.

Who was your favorite character and why?

The thief prince was probably my first favorite and the Kit. Each had a good heart and good intentions.

What about Michele Carpenter’s performance did you like?

She was able to fluctuate her voice just enough during the performance so that you knew that someone else was talking. It can't be easy when so many characters talk at once during different scenes.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes but it wasn't always possible so I wore my Bluetooth around so that's I could listen during house work and driving...LOL...

1 person found this helpful

DNF Bookshelf Forever

I wanted to like this book. It started off interesting and strong, and I love a good Viking man, but somewhere along the way it turned into a syrupy romantic mess with no end in sight. The reader was all over the place with voices and accents (pretty sure Andrick started off with an English accent and that morphed into oddly formal-sounding American... and any supporting female character got some falsetto nonsense that grated my ears). As stated before, I enjoyed the beginning, but then when they reached their destination the romance really began—AND IT WAS AWFUL. It was nonstop back-and-forth self-hating and the other comforting by saying just how wonderful the former is and “did I mention I’ve never met anyone like you before” and “you’re hare-brained idea was super smart and you’re super smart and everything you do is just golden”. News flash: it was a TERRIBLE IDEA. Bad socio-political move, fake Viking man-child.

And then there’s the brother. I feel I need to preface this rant with the confession that I have ACTUALLY lost a brother and the leading lady’s thoughts on the matter are VERY unrealistic. This wouldn’t have been a problem if it hadn’t come up again and again and AGAIN. She repeatedly brushed off the fact that the lead male was KEEPING HER FROM HER DYING BROTHER’S SIDE because, welp, there’s nothing she can do about it and he’ll either die or live and let’s all dissolve into a sobbing self-pity mess about our tragic backstories.

Let me tell you something: if your loved one is dying and some guy kidnaps you, hauls you thousands of miles from said loved-one, and subsequently holds you hostage while you wait excruciatingly for word on their status, you’re not going to just tell them that everything is ok and they made the “right decision”. You’re going to claw their mother-f-ing EYES OUT because every moment with them is precious and you only have so many left. Anything else can wait, including your ludicrous plan to have fine ladies craft swords and duel the princes. Just... why? The world will never know.

Light and sweet

I could see the similarities to the assassins apprentice by robin hobb. I enjoyed this light and airy, storyline not overly complicated so great for cleaning house or working around projects in the yard

Enjoyable, if not very complex

Some lines come off as quite cheesy, and the narration does at times beat you over the head by spelling out the already obvious messages of love, tolerance and and all things nice. Everyone is good, except the strange, savage and ruthless creatures that appear out of nowhere mercilessly killing anything that moves, and no one questions this, because it's just a plot device to make things seem more urgent. However, after all those hefty fantasy series with court intrigue, twisted mind games and backstabbings, this book is just so pure and simple that I couldn't help enjoying it. It was a perfect palate cleanser between books, to rest my mind and heart before diving back into darker themes and moral ambiguity.

amazing Story

thoroughly enjoyed it I wish there was another sequel to this book it should be made into a movie.

Love

I love this I'm an adult into paranormal but I also love dark romance but this was an awesome PG read!!