Audiobook Review – The Lightning Struck Heart (Tale From Verania, Book 1) by T.J. Klune, Narrated by Michael Lesley (5/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 19 hours and 49 minutes
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press LLC
Release Date: December 10, 2015
ASIN : B0195I4PI0
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in the Tales From Verania series
Source: Audiobook from Audible.com
Rating: 5/5 stars

“ Once upon a time, in an alleyway in the slums of the City of Lockes, a young and somewhat lonely boy named Sam Haversford turns a group of teenage douchebags into stone completely by accident.
Of course, this catches the attention of a higher power, and Sam’s pulled from the only world he knows to become an apprentice to the king’s wizard, Morgan of Shadows.

When Sam’s 14, he enters the Dark Woods and returns with Gary, the hornless gay unicorn, and a half-giant named Tiggy, earning the moniker Sam of Wilds.
At 15, Sam learns what love truly is when a new knight arrives at the castle – Knight Ryan Foxheart, the dreamiest dream to have ever been dreamed.

Naturally, it all goes to hell when Ryan dates the reprehensible Prince Justin, Sam can’t control his magic, a sexually aggressive dragon kidnaps the prince, and the king sends them on an epic quest to save Ryan’s boyfriend, all while Sam falls more in love with someone he can never have.

Or, so he thinks.”

Series Info/Source: This is the first book in the Tales from Verania series. I got this as an audiobook from Audible.com.

Audiobook Quality (5/5): The narrator for this book was perfect and did an amazing job reading it. This was soooo good as an audiobook.

Story (5/5): This is a goofy, hilarious and heartfelt story with a ton of zany characters. I laughed so incredibly hard throughout this book and it was highly entertaining. It’s mainly a fantasy adventure/quest sort of book with a lot of detours. Just beaware that this is definitely an adult book with a absolute ton of sex jokes in it and some explicit male/male sex scenes. There are also some rather interesting implied dragon/unicorn sex scenes…and that should tell you a lot about the tone of the story right there.

Characters (5/5): The characters are a big part of what makes this book work; they are all borderline crazy and it is hilarious. I really enjoyed how nice and caring everyone was to each other even though they are put into a lot of crazy situations and the characters are very diverse. These characters somehow all pull off being crude, over-sexed, hilarious, and heartwarming all at once…I know…it’s hard to explain.

Setting (5/5): This is a very typical fantasy setting and its absolute typicalness is approached in a very tongue in cheek sort of fashion. It worked very well for the story, although I think this story could have been set in a different world and still had the same impact.

Writing Style (5/5): I will start by saying that this is very, very different in writing style from “The House in the Cerulean Sea”. This is a much more snappy, tongue in cheek story, with a ton of sexual humor. However, the amazingly complex and caring characters are well done in both books. This was just so well done. The laughs never stop, but there’s a good story, good character development and I loved every bit of it. I am so much looking forward to reading more books by Klune.

My Summary (5/5): Overall I adored this book. It provided much needed laughs and entertainment while still providing some food for thought as well. I really loved it and would recommend to those who enjoy humor fantasy and don’t mind a lot of sex jokes and a lot of male/male relationship discussion/action.