Reviewed by Alexander
TITLE: Treasure
AUTHOR: Kim Fielding
PUBLISHER: Kim Fielding
LENGTH: 4 hours, 5 minutes
NARRATOR: Joel Leslie
RELEASE DATE: July 6, 2016
BLURB:
Julian Massey has always been sickly. When the young man’s parents send him to the seaside town of Urchin Cove to recuperate, he finds himself stranded in a tiny cabin with only the quirky local inhabitants for company. Then a storm blows through, and he finds an unexpected discovery washed up on the beach: an unconscious man.
After stealing a treasure, Kit Archer is taken prisoner by a ruthless pirate, Captain Booth. When a storm hits the pirate ship, Kit is able to escape, but not without serious injuries. Jules nurses him back to health, and friendship grows into desire. But Captain Booth is bound to come in search of his treasure and the man who stole it.
In a world with dragons, sprites, and wizards, it’s going to take more than a little magic for Jules and Kit to find lasting happiness together.
REVIEW:
As many of you know, I am not a fan of historical stories, and now for another admission: I don’t often read blurbs, especially when it comes to “auto-buy” authors like Fielding. That being said, I must admit that I loved Treasure on so many levels.
Fielding cleverly crafted the seemingly normal historical setting for the book, introducing the characters and building their relationships using an efficiency of words to quickly have us achieve a level of familiarity and comfort with both.
That silly Julian would be sent to a remote waterfront village to “rest and recuperate” struck me as his family simply wanting to get rid of him, and yet Julian quickly thrived in his holiday locale, and so when he discovers Kit washed up on the beach, his reactions and actions make sense. Julian’s kindness and Kit’s frailty set the right tone for their growing relationship, which in book time took quite a few weeks, but for us, the pace didn’t feel too fast or too slow, which given the length of the story, show masterful writing skills.
Yes, there were pirates, and they were important for driving Kit’s actions, but what I really want to talk about is the fantasy element woven into the world of Treasure, which, because of the aforementioned non-blurb-reading, came as a pleasant surprise. The imps, the elves, the references to mermaids and other fantastical creatures, was done so smoothly and effortlessly that all of a sudden, a sweet story became a sweet with a fun twist, and for that element alone is worth my recommendation.
Leslie is a genius when it comes to British accents, I think, and couple that quality with his consistent and varied character voices, excellent production values, and you have yet again a proven audio winner.
AUDIO BOOK RATING: 
BUY LINKS:
Amazon