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The Devil's Novice

The Eighth Chronicle of Brother Cadfael

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The Devil's Novice

By: Ellis Peters
Narrated by: Vanessa Benjamin
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Summary

 Outside the pale of the Abbey of Saint Peters and Saint Paul, in September of the year of our Lord 1140, a priestly emissary for King Stephen has been reported missing. But inside the pale, what troubles Brother Cadfael is a proud, secretive 19-year-old novice.
Brother Cadfael has never seen two men more estranged than the Lord of Aspley and Meriet, the son he coldly delivers to the abbey to begin a religious vocation. Meriet, meek by day, is so racked by dreams at night that his howls earn him the nickname the Devil's Novice. Shunned and feared, Meriet is soon linked to the missing priest's dreadful fate. Only Brother Cadfael believes in Meriet's innocence, and only the good sleuth can uncover the truth before a boy's pure passion, not evil intent, leads a novice to the noose.©1983 by Ellis Peters (P)1997 by Blackstone Audiobooks Amateur Sleuths Cosy Detective Historical Mystery Traditional Detectives Fiction
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Critic reviews

"Each addition to the series is a joy. Long may the Chronicles continue." (USA Today)
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Excellent story and it was well read, but it is a shame the sound levels were all over the shop.

Excellent story well read shame the sound levels were all over the shop

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The pronunciation of Cadfael - Cād-vile. Welsh f is pronounced v
The pronunciation of Compline - Cōmp-lynn
but it is a great yarn and well-told.

Great Story

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Love Father Cadfael stories, but V Benjamin misprounces 'compline' and failed to be convincing when attempting a deep voice for the men

Great story, rubbish reader

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I enjoyed this story as much as when I read it many years ago.

The narrator does reasonably well at presenting the characters. I always find it slightly irritating at first to have a female narrator when the principal character is male, or vice versa.

But the narrator does manage to produce consistently different voices for each main character, even Cadfael himself and elderly male voices can be challenging to produce. It took just a little while to attune to the voice, but worth persevering.

Balanced performance

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The narrater has two main faults; firstly, she tries, and fails, to create voices for the characters; secondly, she is unable to change the tones for those characters (e.g. Hugh always sound 'angry', no matter what the book says). If you can, listen to the "Cadfael' books narrated by Derek Jacobi.

The narrater spoils this novel.

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