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Origin cover art

Origin

Written by: AJ Sherwood,Jocelynn Drake
Narrated by: Joel Leslie
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Publisher's Summary

Cameron wants to make one thing clear: He didn't come into the festival to find a dragon mate.

Germany is supposed to be an escape. With a new mechanical engineering degree, a new job looming, and a whole life planned out that isn’t his, Germany seems like the best place for Cameron find himself. So how does he end up discovering his lost magic heritage, running from bad guys with a secret agenda, and being adopted by the not-so-extinct Fire Dragon clan?

He blames tall, dark, and sexy Alric, king of the Fire Dragons: his fated mate. Because of course he is, and mates are meant to take the blame, right? It may take a hot second, but as Cameron learns more about the scarred Alric and the life he’s landed in, he realizes that perhaps this is where he’s meant to be - magic, mates, kidnapping, and all.

Turns out Germany isn't an escape...it's his awakening.

©2021 AJ Sherwood and Jocelynn Drake (P)2021 Podium Audio

What listeners say about Origin

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

Joel Leslie steals the show!

These two authors have written a great story. I’m looking forward to listening to more from this family of dragons and mages. But it’s Joel Leslie who steals the show. An epic creative exercise in accents and pure entertainment. I had only one weeeeeee oddity worth mentioning: while the characters in this book are either German, American, South American or Korean, the non dialogue parts were conducted in what I assume is Mr. Leslie’s native British accent. It’s lovely, but quite oddly out of place when there aren’t any British characters. Not bad, but not something I’d noticed any of Mr. Leslie’s other narrations, of which there are many worth noting. His entire catalogue is excellent.

(Finally if you haven’t already, head over to Mr. Leslie’s website and listen to ALL the accents he’s perfected. It’s amazing and amusing.)

2 people found this helpful

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Dragons, oh my!

In this alternate earth dragons exist or rather they did until the great war between an extremist group of rogue mages the the dragons. Thought dead, there are still two clans, two very small clans, still left. They need mages to survive.
Cameron, who dreamed of seeing dragons is befriended by none other than Alric the King of the fire dragons. Unwilling at first to accept he is a mage until a kidnap attempt proves the existence of magic. Now the rogue mages once thought wiped out are rising again and Cameron and his family as well as the rest of the dragons are all in serious danger.

The story has lots of action and a nice slow built to the romance. It's well done. At no time does the story drag. This is my first audiobook by this author and I will be getting the next one in the series.

Joel. Sigh. He's a good narrator in that he pours his heart into the story and makes you grip the edge of your seat unable to stop listening. That being said, Joel adopts an English accent for Cameron's parts. Now, I love a good British accent, fake or not (Joel isn't British), but Cameron, who is American, should think in an American voice. It throws me at first.

The next thing is that his pronunciation of German words is great in the beginning, not so much by the end. Burkhart becomes 'burgart' for example. Sloppy.

Overall, this is very much worth the credit or purchase.

1 person found this helpful

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Highly recommend!

Romance, sexy times and dragons! Loved the story and the universe created! Can’t wait for the next one!

1 person found this helpful

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the accent ruins the book unfortunately

most of the story and narration is fine: I enjoy the world building and the main characters' performances are believable and interesting. however, the absurd choice of accent for the grandmother is pretty racist, to be honest. it doesn't sound Korean and it's clear the narrator isn't familiar with the language. aside from the grossness of that choice -- especially for a white narrator to perform it, It's just genuinely unpleasant to listen to. I'm most of the way through the book but probably won't finish because of it.

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DNF

The story was fine, but Joel Leslie, who normally is great at many accents, butchered the Korean accent. That character isn’t in much of the book, but unfortunately I couldn’t take it anymore. It was a weird meld of fake-sounding French and fake-Chinese with the occasional Korean-sounding syllable, all said verrrry slowly. I know he tried.

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  • Kindle Customer
  • 2021-08-12

Bad habit of cutting away at important scenes...

it was written okay and I adore Joel Leslie, so I made it through to the end - but the author had a bad habit of switching scenes mid chapter and cutting away to a new scene right as the interesting things were about to happen. The love interests go drinking together - it happened but isn't in the book. They both like DND and gaming - but they never actually do either in the book apart or even separate - it's just referenced. The clan gets a letter from another dragon clan - it's apparently just to set up a phone call? Because people send letters to ask someone to call them all the time...

Also - Joel's "Korean" accent for the grandmother was so painful I nearly put the book down a dozen times. It was the worst faked accent I have ever listened to ever - to the point I'm leary of continuing the series because it was that painful.

17 people found this helpful

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  • Many Hat Momma
  • 2021-08-11

Fire dragon meets mage and sparks fly!

I sometimes have a book on my shelf that is outside of my preferred genre that I have never had time to read. Joel Leslie (one of my most beloved narrators) finished his audio version of ORIGIN, which has been on my TBR list/shelf for a while now, and I just couldn't wait any more. WOWOWOWOWOWOW! I love the story - filled with words that paint vivid pictures in the mind. The characters are unique and interesting, the action is pretty decent - not high voltage intense action, but a few very edge of your seat-what happens next-type of scenes. A male unknown-until-now mage meets the king of the fire dragons... and although it's not an insta-love type of book where "BAM! True Love" happens, sparks do fly. The story has a depth or richness to it that includes a quite interesting world where dragons are the power to the mages and the bond is special. If the rest of the books in the series are like this one, I will buy them all! Joel Leslie brings the characters to life with his accents and seamlessly narrating and then speaking as one character or another. He has excellent timing and emotional control over the narration and that helps the listener really engage with the characters and the story.

8 people found this helpful

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  • Raven reads
  • 2021-08-20

Mages and Dragons

When Cameron decided to backpack through Europe, he never expected to find that Dragons still existed in Germany. Him a mage? No way. Mates? Uhm no. Not possible....is it?

These two authors rank among my favorite and are automatic must buys when it comes to their books. So combining their genius with magic and Dragons and evil bad guys and of course I have to listen to it. Add Joel Leslie's characterizations and duh! He adds so much to an already terrific tale. LOVED IT! Magic, fated mates, found families, snark and mischief combine to create the fabulous clan of Dragons living in Germany. Highly recommend!

3 people found this helpful

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  • WeN
  • 2021-08-17

I took a chance on something different.

I was not disappointed! At least not until I realized I'll have to wait a while for the next one...

3 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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  • Susan Bauer
  • 2021-08-14

Awesome series

Ive read all the books and was super excited to hear that the audio was coming out. It's an interesting take on dragons and mages and had a little bit of everything in it.

I was concerned that I didn't know the narrator until I realized that Joel Leslie and Joel Fromkin are the same person. Joel is always a fabulous narrator and he does this well too. Especially considering the amount of different accents there are. English, British, German and Asian. Add in the amount of characters there are and it's a lot of voices and accents, but I could tell who each was easily.

3 people found this helpful

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  • Amanda Gallant
  • 2022-03-22

Joel Leslie is AWFUL

I want to start by saying that the story is great! It's funny and engaging and I love the world building and pacing. it ticks all my boxes for a m/m UF book and I love it. Reading the book was so much more fun than listening to it.

That said...Joel Leslie sucks. He was the worst possible narrator they could have picked. This book was not made for "uppercut British snob". It was made for witty acerbic banter interspersed with sarcasm and fun. His German accent sounds more like a cross between Russian and French and he constantly mispronounced German words, places, and phrases. A couple DuoLingo lessons would have fixed that. Worse yet was his practically offensive Korean "accent" and the way he absolutely butchered the beauty that is the Korean language. It is truly cringe worthy.
His voice pacing is practically nonexistent and the man wouldn't know how to deliver a sarcastic line if it approached him with a bat. Nor can he pace a story, everything is either rushed or stupidly slow.

5 stars for the Story
-1 star for the narration

2 people found this helpful

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  • Kat
  • 2022-03-03

Unfortunately DNF

I had high hopes but it quickly because a weird, awkwardly boring story that I just couldn’t get into.

2 people found this helpful

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  • Kindle Customer
  • 2021-10-31

Kind of tone deaf

This book comes off unintentionally insensitive towards both race and queerness. Joel Leslie was good.

1 person found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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  • Clara
  • 2021-09-03

Oh, this is a GOOD book!

You know it’s a good book when you go back to re-listen to some parts before it’s even finished. I could really feel the chemistry between Cameron and Alric! I loved how their relationship slowly developed, and Cameron’s pushiness managed to be both endearing and sometimes funny. I will absolutely be reading the rest of this series as soon as possible!

1 person found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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  • Amazon Customer
  • 2021-09-01

A interesting listen

This book was something different and interesting and everyone should give it a good listen

1 person found this helpful