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    Among the Beasts & Briars
    Among the Beasts & Briars
    Among the Beasts & Briars
    Audiobook8 hours

    Among the Beasts & Briars

    Written by Ashley Poston

    Narrated by Hope Newhouse and Andrew Eiden

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Ashley Poston, acclaimed author of Heart of Iron, returns with a dark, lush fairy tale–inspired fantasy for fans of Sara Raasch and Susan Dennard.

    Cerys is safe in the Kingdom of Aloriya. Here there are no droughts, disease, or famine, and peace is everlasting. It has been this way for hundreds of years, since the first king made a bargain with the Lady who ruled the forest that borders the kingdom. But as Aloriya prospered, the woods grew dark, cursed, and forbidden.

    Cerys knows this all too well: When she was young, she barely escaped as the woods killed her friends and her mother. Now Cerys carries a small bit of the curse—the magic—in her blood, a reminder of the day she lost everything.

    As a new queen is crowned, however, things long hidden in the woods descend on the kingdom itself. Cerys is forced on the run, her only companions a small and irritating fox from the royal garden and the magic in her veins. It’s up to her to find the legendary Lady of the Wilds and beg for a way to save her home.

    But the road is darker and more dangerous than she knows, and as secrets from the past are uncovered amid the teeth and roots of the forest, it’s going to take everything she has just to survive.

    Editor's Note

    Gorgeous YA fairy tale…

    Cerys lives in a peaceful kingdom, but just beyond this beauty lies a dark, dark forest that killed her mother and imbued Cerys’ blood with special power to make greenery grow. With the woods threatening the kingdom, Cerys and her closest friend — a fox — embark on a journey to find the root of her and the forest’s curse in this gorgeous YA fairy tale.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateOct 20, 2020
    ISBN9780063025899
    Author

    Ashley Poston

    Ashley Poston loves dread pirates, moving castles, and starry night skies. When not lost in a book, she’s lost in real life, searching for her next great adventure. She is the author of Heart of Iron and its sequel, Soul of Stars, as well as the Once Upon a Con series. She can be found online at www.ashposton.com.

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    Reviews for Among the Beasts & Briars

    4/5

    332 ratings17 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      I want to listen to this so bad, it looks like it would be a great story but sadly the audiobook keeps skipping or jumping & it’s very hard to make out the narrator’s words. ☹️

      5 people found this helpful

    • 1/5
      Book sounds good but the audio skips and you can’t enjoy it

      3 people found this helpful

    • 1/5
      The audiobook keeps skipping! The book sounds so good though ????

      2 people found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Are you looking for some serious fairytale vibes, some monsters, some magic, and a quest?

      Among the Beast and Briars was a lovely fantasy read, and I hope there is more written in this world. There is a magic crown, a cursed wood, some magic powers, and an adorable fox and a bear for companions. Cerys is just a gardener’s daughter, who was cursed with strange blood magic the day that she lost her friends, including the prince of Aloriya, and her mother to the Ancients of the woods.When her best friend is crowned Princess, evil descends from the woods, and Cerys is forced to run to try to find some way to save her friends, family, and home. It will not be an easy journey, and there is lots to enjoy following along on her harrowing quest.

      I loved all of the characters, especially Fox, and I found this easy to read, to pick up and put down, and to have a discussion with other readers about it. I definitely felt clever having seen some of the twists coming, but it didn’t feel heavy handed or overly obvious, at least to me. I did see other reviews suggesting it was VERY OBVIOUS, so maybe it was just me. The romance was a very typical YA fantasy romance plot line, but I overall enjoyed it, and it didn’t feel as insta-love as it otherwise might’ve, which made me like it more.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      First the cover for this book is amazing. The story did not disappoint either. Cerys and Fox are great characters. The Magic in the story was really neat. I loved this. I highly recommend this book!

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I loved it! This book has hit my "creepy-esque fairytale" sweet tooth! Aka, it hit the spot! I haven't read a book like this in awhile and it was such a joy.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I loved this book and will read it again! I love the voice for the audiobook as well, very pleasant to listen to

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Beauty and the Beast + Lord of the Rings + The Walking Dead

      Cerys has had a hard life. Her mother and friends disappeared into the woods when she was little. She was the only one who came out of the woods and her blood had had the power to grow flowers since (Coincidentally, her father is the king’s gardener). After an unthinkable turn of events at her best friend’s coronation, she, the irritating fox she once saved, and a strange bear must go on a quest to stop the madness once and for all.

      I ADORED this!! Since Wicked came out 25 years ago, retellings has been my favorite genre because I find a lack of fairytales. But Ashley Poston has brought them back with a bang! THIS is what a fantasy should be. Not those high fantasy books that make you feel stupid because you have no idea what is going on or half the words mean. But a beautiful, lush world with talking animals snd magic. The characters were great, humans, animals, and others alike.

      And THAT COVER!!

      Buy this for yourself or for anyone who loves a lush, rich fairytale. If you’re twisted, get it for someone who believes they’re too old for fairytales.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I have to say this made me think of those classic fairy tales. I love the mysterious wild woods and the characters evolving to roles they never thought they could become. This is a magical story bringing you in the journey to discovery, and a true happily ever after.
    • 3/5
      *3.5 stars* good storyline, but got bored of the female character. The Fox was well developed
    • 5/5
      I loved the magic. I loved the horror. I loved, truly LOVED, all of the points where we got to see the flowers growing out of someone's body, in their hair, listen to the thick visceral sounds of popping bones and husky breath chilling our neck as we sat gripped with tension that our lovely Daisy might be plucked before her time...

      I enjoyed the characters a lot. I feel like there's far more in this world we truly get to see, and I actually quite love that because we get SO much information about the world, so many inklings and featherings that there's more than we can truly know without some grand compendium to go alongside the book.

      I was surprised by the narration choice but both narrators really grew on me, and by the end I found myself wanting more of their voices working on other projects. They really shape the tone and personalities of the characters beyond standard YA fantasy of this kind, bringing both characters into something more touchable and unique.
    • 4/5
      Why why why did I wait so long to read this beautiful fairytale....
    • 5/5
      Lovely light read ^^ perfect to listen to while doing chores haha fantastic romance with adventures! Yey
    • 5/5
      "Among the Beasts & Briars" by Ashley Poston tells the story of Cerys the gardeners daughter and blood cursed as she goes on a adventure to break the curse on her kingdom with two of her animal friends. While on this journey she learns many things, breaks the curse, and falls in love.

      I would give "Among the Beasts & Briars" by Ashley Poston a 5 star review because, the cover is beautiful, the concept is, amazing, the characters were so enjoyable, the plot twist was surprising though I was suspecting it and the ending was perfect for this book.
    • 4/5
      While not drawing on any one fairy tale alone, the themes and atmosphere of those tales are apparent in this book. The primary narrator Cerys is the gardener's daughter who possesses a potentially dangerous secret - she has magical powers (or perhaps a curse). In the kingdom of Aloriya, only the monarch is supposed to have magic. However, when the time comes to crown a new monarch - Cerys' friend Anwen - everything goes wrong. Cerys ends up fleeing with a 300-year-old crown and a friendly fox in desperate quest to save her friend and her home from the dark curse of the Wildwood. Overall, this book was a fun, fast read. Some elements of the worldbuilding felt forced and not quite fleshed out, but by and large, that didn't take too much away from the story.
    • 5/5
      While some of the eventual reveals will be deciphered early on by astute readers, that's a very trivial issue as this story has so much action and twists that it is easy to open the book and get lost in the story almost immediately. A very satisfying tale and one that libraries where fantasy with dark twists are popular, should buy.
    • 4/5
      Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book (I think). I got an eGalley of this from NetGalley to review.Story (5/5): This was very good and I liked it a lot. It's quite a departure from Poston's other series (Heart of Iron, Once Upon a Con). This has a classic fairy tale feel to it but also a lot of action and adventure along with some witty banter. I loved the dark fairy tale vibe to this story. There are some fun twists and turns to the story, some of them were predictable and some of them were not. I really enjoyed the adventure and the way everything was resolved. This seems to be a stand alone story but there are hints that there may be stories about some of the other characters to come, which I would love to see.Cerys lives in an isolated city where King Sunder ruled with a magic crown that protected everyone from the evil forest and the monsters that surround the city. Cerys's best friend, Anwen, is set to inherit the crown after King Sunder's death but then everything goes horribly wrong. Cerys is left to venture through the evil forest with only Fox (her pet fox) by her side and her strange magic (that makes her blood grow vegetation) to help her through. Her and Fox are searching for the lost city in the woods that should be able to save them.Characters (4/5): Cerys was an okay character but came off as a bit vanilla to me at times. I absolutely adored Fox, he was funny and witty and complex. Some of the side characters were more interesting than Cerys and sounds like they might feature in their own stories at some point.Setting (5/5): I loved the setting of this evil forest, it was so creative and well described. Poston did a great job of developing the setting here and really making it come alive.Writing Style (4/5): I always enjoy Poston's ideas for stories, however I am not completely sold on her writing style. It's technically well done but always seems to be lacking a little more description or something to give it a bit more depth and complexity. A vague complaint I know, but I have read all of her books to date and am always left feeling like, "Well, I liked that story but I just felt like it was a but thin at points."My Summary (4.5/5): Overall I would definitely recommend if you love dark fairy tales and adventures. This was well done and there aren't a lot of books like this out there. If future books are released that are off-shoots from this one I definitely plan on checking them out.