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  • Tracing Shadows

  • Scout, Book 1
  • By: Alex Lidell
  • Narrated by: Hayden Daviau
  • Length: 6 hrs and 21 mins
  • 4.0 out of 5 stars (4 ratings)
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Tracing Shadows cover art

Tracing Shadows

By: Alex Lidell
Narrated by: Hayden Daviau
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Summary

To protect the throne, 17-year-old spy Kali must play a male guardsman trainee by day and royal lady by night.

Orphaned and trained on a spymaster’s remote estate, Kali is a scout who works alone in the shadows. But when a terror group threatens the Dansil throne, the king forces Kali to accept a mission at the palace or forfeit her sister’s life. 

Suddenly thrust into the light, Kali must infiltrate high society as the royal Lady Lianna while penetrating the servant ranks as Kal, a male guardsman trainee. It doesn’t help that Trace, the harsh and enigmatic captain of the king’s guard, is soon assigned as both Lady Lianna’s palace escort and Kal’s commanding officer. 

As Kali edges closer to the truth behind the violent group’s identity, she uncovers dangerous secrets that could bring her mission to a brutal end. A scout’s job is to observe and report, never to engage...but if it means saving her sister and kingdom, Kali may have no choice. 

Tracing Shadows, by Amazon best-selling author Alex Lidell, is the first novel in the Scout series. Perfect for fans of Tamora Pierce, Leigh Bardugo, and Sarah J. Maas.

©2018 Alex Lidell (P)2018 Alex Lidell

What listeners say about Tracing Shadows

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

A good start to a fun series!

Kali and Trace make a really good team! I enjoyed getting to know Kali on her own and even enjoyed her initial interactions with Trace, who was a bit high and mighty. There was a bit of silly tension between the two as they worked out their always fluctuating relationship but I can forgive them that.

Kali’s young enough to have doubts about her abilities on her first real espionage mission. Still, there were situations that I thought her training would have readied her for, like nudity in the guards change room, etc. So, I did do some small eyerolls. After all, what good is a spy that gives themselves away by blushing over a bit of casual nudity? Kali totally redeemed herself with her knife skills.

Leaf, Kali’s sister who is being held hostage, has her secret skills too – she’s talented with the crystal healing magic, a Whisperer. Alas, this talent can get a person killed. Even though she has such a small role, I liked her character and want to learn more about her.

Crown Prince Wil and his sister Violet are very different from each other. Kali is charged with protecting Wil, so she has to traipse around with him, and also Trace. Meanwhile, Violet is an introverted young lady who has severe doubts of her self-worth. She is also caught up in deep grieving over the recent death of their mother. While I didn’t particularly like her character, she gave us a window into a dangerous and manipulative religious group.

Next to Kali, Trace becomes my favorite character…. yes, it’s a tie between the two of them. While the plot and characters start off simple, we get a little layering later in the tale, with Trace especially. He’s got plenty of secrets and hidden skills. Kali eventually grows a bit after she makes a bad mistake that leaves her injured.

The story never lagged for me. Plenty of action interspersed with spy stuff kept me engaged. The tale does end on a cliff hanger so I hope Book 2 comes out on audiobook very soon. 4.5/5 stars.

The Narration: Hayden Daviau gave a really good performance with this narration. Her male voices are believable and she had distinct voices for all the characters. I especially liked her waspish, peeved voice for Leaf while she tries to attend to Kali’s injuries. She did a great job with the emotional scenes as well. 5/5 stars.

I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Alex Lidell. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Want something more in depth

The voice narration by Hayden is good, but at times I felt she spoke too quickly. Overall her voice narration for the different characters is distinct and full of emotion. There were a couple times that long pauses were used, I think due to some editing. It felt a little off and broke up the story for me. I would give the audio a 4/5 stars.

The storyline by Lidell is good, although I think it could go into more depth. Listening to this story I was wondering why things had turned out the way they did for some characters, and I do think we get some answers by the end. Just not enough I’d say to feel completely secure with where the story is going. I also felt with characters like Violet that they were used to spice up the novel, but also didn’t go too deep with them as well. I would give the story a 3.5-4/5 stars. It’s a well written novel, I just want more attachment to my characters and setting!

I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Alex Lidell. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

An Exciting and Magical World!

Tracing Shadows is a fast paced fantasy novel, following the fortunes of Kali a trained scout that can adopt a male persona. This helps her on spy an underground society that terrorises the local people. Her other identity is Lady Liliana niece to the king and her sister Leaf who is posing as her maid.
As this is the first book there is a lot of world building, plenty of action. We also become familiar with all the characters. I don’t want to spoil it for you, this is aimed at the young adult market with Kali being a teenager. We have plenty of males in the book as Kal has to bunk with the other guardsmen, and Will the Crown Prince decides to make Kali his guardsman.
Plenty of action as Kal, Trace and Lucas discover who’s behind the violence and trying to keep  a war going. There is plenty going on which I’m not going spoil for you. If you love kingdoms with magic and interesting characters, some more than others. I listened to this in one go as the narrator  was brilliant with the different voices, and it kept me glued to the story. The narrator was superb, I wasn’t pulled from the story once.

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