Listen free for 30 days

  • Cephrael's Hand

  • A Pattern of Shadow and Light, Book 1
  • Written by: Melissa McPhail
  • Narrated by: Nick Podehl
  • Length: 32 hrs and 6 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (147 ratings)

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo + applicable taxes after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
Cephrael's Hand cover art

Cephrael's Hand

Written by: Melissa McPhail
Narrated by: Nick Podehl
Try for $0.00

$14.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $52.62

Buy Now for $52.62

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Tax where applicable.

Publisher's Summary

"All things are composed of patterns...." And within the pattern of the realm of Alorin, three strands must cross.

In Alorin...300 years after the genocidal Adept Wars, the realm is dying, and the blessed Adept race dies with it. One man holds the secret to reverting this decline: Bjorn van Gelderan, a dangerous and enigmatic man whose shocking betrayal three centuries past earned him a traitor's brand. It is the Adept Vestal Raine D'Lacourte's mission to learn what Bjorn knows in the hope of salvaging his race. But first he'll have to find him....

In the kingdom of Dannym...the young Prince Ean val Lorian faces a tenuous future as the last living heir to the coveted Eagle Throne. When his blood brother is slain during a failed assassination, Ean embarks on a desperate hunt for the man responsible. Yet his advisors have their own agendas, and his quest for vengeance leads him ever deeper into a sinuous plot masterminded by a mysterious and powerful man, the one they call First Lord.

In the Nadori desert...tormented by the missing pieces of his life, a soldier named Trell heads off to uncover the truth of his shadowed past. But when disaster places him in the debt of Wildlings sworn to the First Lord, Trell begins to suspect a deadlier, darker secret motivating them.

©2010 Melissa McPhail (P)2016 Podium Publishing

What listeners say about Cephrael's Hand

Average Customer Ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    95
  • 4 Stars
    29
  • 3 Stars
    12
  • 2 Stars
    5
  • 1 Stars
    6
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    109
  • 4 Stars
    17
  • 3 Stars
    4
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    2
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    80
  • 4 Stars
    32
  • 3 Stars
    8
  • 2 Stars
    5
  • 1 Stars
    7

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Disappointing and homophobic

I am always excited to find a fantasy series by a female author. In spite of mixed reviews I downloaded Cephrael's Hand, and was immediately reminded of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series by both prose and sheet quantity of expository dialogue. Unlike Jordan's epic series, however, Cephrael's Hand (which I admit I am still about 5 hours from finishing) has not panned out into anything beyond clumsy exposition and a lot of characters with very few distinct personality traits beyond 'royal,' 'servant,' 'female,' etc. The women are all passive and desirable, and the men treat them as such in a watered down version of the medieval court tradition. The reason I certainly won't be continuing this series is not that it's slow to take off, however, but that the text repeatedly stresses how "horrifying" the gay villains (and villains are the only gay characters) are. The author has published an article on her website discussing how these characters are used to elicit an emotional response (either fear of desire) in her readers, however I still find this pretty troubling and will not in good conscience be able to purchase the next book.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

11 people found this helpful

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

Meh

Nick Podehl's performance is without reproach. I will not buy the next book because the story and character just did not do it for me. Be ready for 6-7 hrs of character introductions. The cast act like they are mentally challenged fourteen years old while being described as gifted. The sex scenes are cringy. Liking Sanderson, Jordan, or Tolkien are not signs you will like this book.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

8 people found this helpful

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

Totally captivating

I am a hardcore long time, old school fantasy/sci-fi lover. And this book was a great adventure for me. It took a few chapters to really get into the story. I love Nick Podehl as a narrator. That’s actually how I found this series; I searched books narrated by him. But by the end of the book I found myself totally enthralled. I am really looking forward to the next book!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

6 people found this helpful

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

it says header is optional but really is not

I could not get into the story at all and I need six more words to be able to submit.
so there you have it

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

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

Overuse of Romance/Sex as a Plot Device Ruins It

These novels could have been outstanding, but I can no longer bear them. I read 2 3/4 of them before I grew sick of the endless, insipid romance, or the overuse/misuse of sex as a mechanism to achieve goals lofty or otherwise. It seems each interesting character must have their entire personality subverted by a Great Love, usually one that is utterly nonsensical. Romantic love is a wonderful thing, to be sure, but it does not trump everything else and it shouldn’t be allowed to ruin otherwise exceptional fiction. It is possible for good and likeable characters to have motivation rooted on other values. It is possible for two characters to form a powerful bond without making love to do so. It is possible for an evil magic user to induce the worst possible torture without repeatedly raping their victim (thankfully, these rapes were man-on-man and woman-on-man, so at the very least I didn’t have to endure horrific scenes of women being raped).

For those who think they can listen to these parts of the story without going mad, here are some of the good parts. The system of magic is very cool. The generation of suspense in having characters discover their origins through trials and tribulations is captivating. The ethnic diversity is fabulous. The conception of various kinds of rebirth and immortality is imaginative and compelling. If all of this sounds like enough to keep you going through the tiresome BS, then I wish you the best. For my part, I will satisfy myself with some synopses and move on with something more worth my time.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

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

Originally returned this book!

Good, very good

I had originally returned this book for reasons currently unknown to me because unfortunately I'm currently writing this review after 6 months finishing the entire series, not entirely sure why I returned this book but I'm glad I decided to give it another go.

First off Nick Podehl, this guy is the best narrator on audible

This series is amazing, masterful world building, interesting and organized character development, great plot development and story pacing, little to no story repetition, great use of various person’s perspectives and various character perspectives.

It amazing how this author tells many stories throughout this series and masterfully brings them all together while still keeping the world its self and the main plot interesting and organized.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

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

amazing

NICK PODEHL IS GOD! he must have a thousand voices. story is great magic system is awesome. there are a lot of place names... i had tp learn to not try to reme,ber them all.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Wes
  • 2019-06-01

Not an enjoyable book

Not Nick's best performance, but maybe that's the book.

Kept jumping to different areas and characters, found absolutely nothing to attach to and the individual stories weren't interesting enough to make me curious. Had no time to find bearing in what the rules of the world are either.

2 1/2 hours lost.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

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

An ok book made great by good voice acting.

decent book. ok character development. nick is one of the best voice actors I've heard.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Kat
  • 2018-07-09

Really enjoyed the book and love the narration.

the story was good and kept me wanting to comintue listening.

the narration was fantastic!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful