A Gathering of Shadows cover art

A Gathering of Shadows

A Darker Shade of Magic, Book 2

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A Gathering of Shadows

By: V. E. Schwab
Narrated by: Kate Reading, Michael Kramer
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About this listen

From number one New York Times best-selling author V.E. Schwab comes the sequel to A Darker Shade of Magic - A Gathering of Shadows!

Kell is plagued by his guilt. Restless, and having given up smuggling, he is visited by dreams of ominous magical events, waking only to think of Lila.

As Red London prepares for the Element Games - an extravagant international competition of magic - a certain pirate ship draws closer. But another London is coming back to life, a shadow that was gone in the night reappears in the morning.

Black London has risen again - and so to keep magic's balance, another London must fall.

©2016 V. E. Schwab (P)2020 W. F. Howes
Classics Crime Fiction Fantasy Fiction Mystery Resurrection England

Critic Reviews

"Addictive and immersive, A Gathering of Shadows cements this series as a must-read." (Entertainment Weekly)

What listeners say about A Gathering of Shadows

Average Customer Ratings
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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A wonderful series.

It is such a wonderful story, I couldn't stop listening. Thr characters are so engaging. The change of readers from book one to two was disappointing. They used different terminology, accents and got the character's name wrong intermittently. It would be good to have a consistent reader across the series.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

brilliant

loved the narration and found it far better than the first book. so much tension bleeds out the story and into your life. i hope you have someone to discuss and yell about it with

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

lovely to have 2 voice actors.

I liked the fact that they had a male and female narrator, but gosh what a wasted opportunity to not have them read the roles of Lila and Kell within the same chapter. really would have elevated the audio experience instead of having the female narrator read Kell and Lila during Lila chapters and vice a versa.
otherwise the storyline is really captivating.
good solid sequel.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Incredibly frustrating change of narrator

Unfortunately the narrator / narrators have been changed since book 1.

Firstly, I find the inconsistency from book 1 to here makes it very difficult to maintain the same imagery, and creates a character that is, in fact, a different character. This grates on me, and challenges every moment I try to continue listening.

Secondly, the female lead in this, narrates in exactly the same style as her performance in the radiant series of books… she may as well be performing the same character. The American accent simply does not work, either.

Extremely difficult to continue listening. I think I’ll buy the book instead.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Great story. Ends on a cliff hangar.

Thoroughly enjoyed this second book in the series. Looking forward to the third.

No disrespect to the narrators, but it was a very strange choice of the publisher, or whoever makes these decisions to (a) switch narrator between the first and second book and (b) use Americans who are not able to do any English accent other than an upperclass accent. (Lila is a working class ‘street rat’ and the narrator of the first book got it perfect) and (c) most annoying of all, keep changing between a male and female narrator so that the voices of the main characters keep changing depending on which narrator is reading that particular chapter. Whose stupid idea was that?

Despite all that I still have it 5 stars because I love the story and managed to overcome my irritation with the constantly changing narration. But these books really need to be voiced by an English reader.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Narrators make all the characters annoying

This is an excellent story, and I was hopeful that with different narrators to the first book it would be easier to listen to. Unfortunately not, the male particularly made almost everyone sound petulant and irritating, and at times had bizarre intonation.
The female narrator was a better with voices, but again had odd tone and emphasis. I had to listen at 1.2 speed to make it bearable, but it is so bad that as with the first book, it was very hard to concentrate on the story.
With a decent narrator this would be a solid 5 stars.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Poetic narration killed the story

I don’t like being critical of narrators bu where Michael told the story, Kate’s performance put me off the book. Her performance improved in waves but was not consistent. Her breathy sing song narration of the work feels too much like it’s effortful and her inflections were all over the place- it made it sound like poor poetry was being read and the voice, tones and inflections stole attention from the prose. Pauses lingered uncomfortably longer than a commas worth and I was distracted by this throughout. I determinedly waded through the book but can’t bring myself to go through the third of the trilogy.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Unable to finish listening

New narrator has a halting way of reading. Ruined the flow of the story for me. I will just read the book.

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1 person found this helpful

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