Dun Lady Jess Changespell Book 1 (Audible Audio Edition) Doranna Durgin Vanessa Hart Audible Studios Books
Download As PDF : Dun Lady Jess Changespell Book 1 (Audible Audio Edition) Doranna Durgin Vanessa Hart Audible Studios Books
When hikers Dayna and Eric find a young woman naked, terrified, and speechless, they're sure she's the victim of foul play. But the truth is much more shocking She isn't human at all. She's Dun Lady's Jess, a horse transformed into this new shape by the spell that brought her and her rider, to whom she is utterly devoted, into this world. Posessed now of human intelligence but still a horse deep inside, Jess desperately searches this world for her master and rider, using her fiery equine spirit to take on human idiosyncracies - and human threats.
Dun Lady's Jess is a blend of adventure, magic, and romance that spans our world and its richly imagined fantasy counterpart. Horse become human, Jess is spirited and intelligent, seeing our world through a unique perspective. Pursued by evil, she must find a way not only to save her rider and both worlds, but also to keep who she has become.
Dun Lady Jess Changespell Book 1 (Audible Audio Edition) Doranna Durgin Vanessa Hart Audible Studios Books
Fantasy books and movies have been rife with shape-shifting heroes and villains in recent years, mostly werewolves and vampires. The teaser for this book stood out from all that, however, in that it included a character who is transformed from a horse to a human. That intrigued me and so I read the Kindle version of the book.The story is solidly a fantasy set in a parallel world to current-day earth, called Camolen. Camolen is very similar to our world, and is very much an Earth II, but not a duplicate. While it is Earth and is inhabited by human beings and the same species of animals, it is not the same people and animals. The level of civilization seems to be more-or-less medieval with the world ruled, or at least led, by wizards. And their level of technology is very low, with most of the functions that we handle by technology and machines, being handled for them by magic.
The storyline involves a spell that has been created by the good wizards (including the protag wizard, Arlen) that allows people to transcend dimensions and so travel between worlds (like between Camolen and our Earth). Work on the spell has been accomplished by a “networking” of the wizards via horse-riding couriers (which is less risky than using magic). But with the spell operational, the wizards are concerned that some “of the less conscientious” among them will use the spell to travel to other worlds to ravage them and bring back technology to wreak havoc in Camolen.
One such bad wizard is a woman named, Calandre, who has found out about the worlds-traveling spell and is seeking to obtain it. So Arlen purposes to send his lead courier, Carey, to an associate wizard, Sherra, who will create a “checkspell” that will prevent unauthorized use of the world-transversing spell (this is commonly done for all major magic).
It’s crucial that Carey not get caught with the spell (contained in a gemstone) and the documentation that goes with it. Arlen warns him to invoke the spell to escape if anyone tries to capture him. His escape will be to another world, where he can invoke it again to return to a safe-house in Camolen (since a connection between worlds will follow him and so give him access to the magic in Camolen). He’ll have to be careful, though, not to take along inadvertent stragglers within the spell’s range. Got that?
Now all of this struck me as pretty run-of-the-mill for fantasy stories and, while well-written, didn’t really grab me. Still, it held my interest enough to stay with it. I suspect strong fans of this genre will have no trouble remaining involved with the story.
So in a nutshell, Carey is attacked while on the road and flees riding his fast horse, Dun Lady’s Jess (he calls her “Lady”). To save his life and his mission, Carey is forced to invoke the worlds-transversing spell and it takes him and Lady to our Earth. One side effect of the spell is that is changes Lady into a woman.
About half the book concerns the adventures of Carey and Lady on our Earth. They find they have been followed by a minion of Calandre and so most of the action is the chasing and battling between them.
The strength of the book is the family of characters that develop around Carey and the transformed Lady (who as a woman is called, “Jess”). Ms Durgin handles those characters and their relationships very well. She also does well in developing Jess as a character—as both horse and human. Jess’ struggles to adjust to her new form are told believably and sympathetically, and are the fun of the book. And of course, there’s the complication of the transfer of her feelings of devotion for Carey as a horse, to her love of him as a human.
In the last half of the book, the action returns to Camolen where the worlds-traveling magic transforms Jess back to Lady. She is still a Point-Of-View character, however, and Ms Durgin handles those scenes well and we continue to pull for Lady as we pulled for Jess. We also see development in the other protagonist characters and their adjustments to a world where technology is replaced by magic.
Dun Lady’s Jess won the Compton Crook for Best First SF/F/H of the Year (in 2013, I suppose) and has a devoted following for it and it’s two sequels (it would make a good TV series, I think). And while it is a good book—well written with a great hook of the horse-to-human angle, and infused with an obvious love for horses, I do have a few criticisms.
First, while Ms Durgin does a good job with the characterizations of the protagonists, she leaves the antagonists (especially the bad wizard, Calandre) rather flat. We don’t really know what motivates Calandre other than just being a psychopath, and she’s not in very many scenes. Most of the “bad work” is done by Calandre’s minions and they are mostly just expendables without character. Actually, I think even Arlen could have been developed some more.
The idea of magic being used instead of technology in Camolen was kind of interesting but not quite believable to me. I did like, however, the idea that using magic has consequences of collateral damage and side-effects. Overall, though, the main storyline of the conflict between wizards struck me as weak. I didn’t get a feel of “high stakes,” and what battling there was between the wizards seemed to abbreviated.
Still, there were moments of insight that appealed to me. Like when Arlen asks Jaime (the horse expert) if there were evil people like Calandre on her world. She replies:
“Too many of them. Of course, they don’t have magic to play with. They have to make do with guns and bombs and blind political fervor.”
There’s a theme there that I think Ms Durgin could have enlarged on a bit.
I did like this book. I think Ms Durgin has come up with a unique, interesting, and sympathetic character in Jess the horse/woman who should be able to sustain a series. Ms Durgin just needs to ramp up her storytelling a bit and expand her character development to the bad guys.
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Dun Lady Jess Changespell Book 1 (Audible Audio Edition) Doranna Durgin Vanessa Hart Audible Studios Books Reviews
This book had me almost from page one. Ms Durgin has created and presented a world that is not only believable, but is also true to itself. I wanted to interact with the characters. Of course, I was through her mind! The plot had enough surprises to keep me thoroughly engaged with the story. In fact much of the time I did not want to put the book down. Also the bane of e-books, typos and proofreading errors, were barely noticed - a major plus! I plan on reading the rest of the books in the series and expect to be as well entertained. I highly recommend this book for its fantastical and plausible story.
This was a truly unique story, told from a different perspective. The lead character is a horse in one world, who is changed into a woman in modern day Ohio. Her senses, her expectations of the world, and her growth into an amazing and brave person, are narrated in a believable manner. The author paints a picture of a horse as a being with personality and value, and yet, does not diminish the idea of being human. The actual plot, which involves a courier and his horse escaping their world to protect a magic spell, enlisting the help of humans from our world to return and right the wrongs committed by the spell, is fast paced and well thought out. A unusual story, well executed.
I've read sci-fi and fantasy for over fifty yrs, but rarely have I encountered a more beautifully written story than Dun Lady's Jess. It makes every other shape-shifter series pale in comparison. I don't say that lightly, being a loyal fan of Eileen WIlks (Lupi), Laurell K. Hamilton (Anita Blake) and Charlaine Harris (Sookie Stackhouse).
If you are a horse-lover - and many girls are - you will instantly know that Ms. Durgin genuinely loves and understands horses. The mental confusion, the physical gestures - how a horse would behave if suddenly transformed into a human - are absolutely believable, with riveting yet succinct description.
I give this my highest praise - I'm buying "Dun Lady's Jess" in its original paperback so I can add into my permanent collection alongside the classic horse tales by Marguerite Henry that were illustrated by Wesley Dennis. The beautiful cover art of "Dun Lady's Jess" will fit in perfectly.
This is not the normal type of story I choose. I was influenced to curiosity by the reviews. I'm really glad I gave it a try. It was an unusual approach to the body swapping/turned into an animal tropes, and I felt that it was handled very well, and in a unique manner. The pace was a little slow for me, but it worked well for the story. I don't want to give anything away, but I encourage readers to give this unusual story a try.
A man on a mission and his horse are thrust into our world, and the horse is unexpectedly turned into a woman in passage. She manages to retain her sanity with the help of experienced horse people, new friends, and her loving rider, but she's still a horse on the inside. She learns more than anyone ever expected she could, and develops opinions, ideas, and goals of her own, but remains deeply committed to her rider, their mission, and to getting home.
There are many questions about what will happen to her when they figure out how to get home, and questions about whether or not home will still be safe since their mission has been delayed.
Even more questions arise when they are just as unexpectedly transported back to their own world--along with their new friends from this one.
It's really pretty well done. I liked it, and I look forward to reading the next book in the series, despite it being very different from my regular reads.
Fantasy books and movies have been rife with shape-shifting heroes and villains in recent years, mostly werewolves and vampires. The teaser for this book stood out from all that, however, in that it included a character who is transformed from a horse to a human. That intrigued me and so I read the version of the book.
The story is solidly a fantasy set in a parallel world to current-day earth, called Camolen. Camolen is very similar to our world, and is very much an Earth II, but not a duplicate. While it is Earth and is inhabited by human beings and the same species of animals, it is not the same people and animals. The level of civilization seems to be more-or-less medieval with the world ruled, or at least led, by wizards. And their level of technology is very low, with most of the functions that we handle by technology and machines, being handled for them by magic.
The storyline involves a spell that has been created by the good wizards (including the protag wizard, Arlen) that allows people to transcend dimensions and so travel between worlds (like between Camolen and our Earth). Work on the spell has been accomplished by a “networking” of the wizards via horse-riding couriers (which is less risky than using magic). But with the spell operational, the wizards are concerned that some “of the less conscientious” among them will use the spell to travel to other worlds to ravage them and bring back technology to wreak havoc in Camolen.
One such bad wizard is a woman named, Calandre, who has found out about the worlds-traveling spell and is seeking to obtain it. So Arlen purposes to send his lead courier, Carey, to an associate wizard, Sherra, who will create a “checkspell” that will prevent unauthorized use of the world-transversing spell (this is commonly done for all major magic).
It’s crucial that Carey not get caught with the spell (contained in a gemstone) and the documentation that goes with it. Arlen warns him to invoke the spell to escape if anyone tries to capture him. His escape will be to another world, where he can invoke it again to return to a safe-house in Camolen (since a connection between worlds will follow him and so give him access to the magic in Camolen). He’ll have to be careful, though, not to take along inadvertent stragglers within the spell’s range. Got that?
Now all of this struck me as pretty run-of-the-mill for fantasy stories and, while well-written, didn’t really grab me. Still, it held my interest enough to stay with it. I suspect strong fans of this genre will have no trouble remaining involved with the story.
So in a nutshell, Carey is attacked while on the road and flees riding his fast horse, Dun Lady’s Jess (he calls her “Lady”). To save his life and his mission, Carey is forced to invoke the worlds-transversing spell and it takes him and Lady to our Earth. One side effect of the spell is that is changes Lady into a woman.
About half the book concerns the adventures of Carey and Lady on our Earth. They find they have been followed by a minion of Calandre and so most of the action is the chasing and battling between them.
The strength of the book is the family of characters that develop around Carey and the transformed Lady (who as a woman is called, “Jess”). Ms Durgin handles those characters and their relationships very well. She also does well in developing Jess as a character—as both horse and human. Jess’ struggles to adjust to her new form are told believably and sympathetically, and are the fun of the book. And of course, there’s the complication of the transfer of her feelings of devotion for Carey as a horse, to her love of him as a human.
In the last half of the book, the action returns to Camolen where the worlds-traveling magic transforms Jess back to Lady. She is still a Point-Of-View character, however, and Ms Durgin handles those scenes well and we continue to pull for Lady as we pulled for Jess. We also see development in the other protagonist characters and their adjustments to a world where technology is replaced by magic.
Dun Lady’s Jess won the Compton Crook for Best First SF/F/H of the Year (in 2013, I suppose) and has a devoted following for it and it’s two sequels (it would make a good TV series, I think). And while it is a good book—well written with a great hook of the horse-to-human angle, and infused with an obvious love for horses, I do have a few criticisms.
First, while Ms Durgin does a good job with the characterizations of the protagonists, she leaves the antagonists (especially the bad wizard, Calandre) rather flat. We don’t really know what motivates Calandre other than just being a psychopath, and she’s not in very many scenes. Most of the “bad work” is done by Calandre’s minions and they are mostly just expendables without character. Actually, I think even Arlen could have been developed some more.
The idea of magic being used instead of technology in Camolen was kind of interesting but not quite believable to me. I did like, however, the idea that using magic has consequences of collateral damage and side-effects. Overall, though, the main storyline of the conflict between wizards struck me as weak. I didn’t get a feel of “high stakes,” and what battling there was between the wizards seemed to abbreviated.
Still, there were moments of insight that appealed to me. Like when Arlen asks Jaime (the horse expert) if there were evil people like Calandre on her world. She replies
“Too many of them. Of course, they don’t have magic to play with. They have to make do with guns and bombs and blind political fervor.”
There’s a theme there that I think Ms Durgin could have enlarged on a bit.
I did like this book. I think Ms Durgin has come up with a unique, interesting, and sympathetic character in Jess the horse/woman who should be able to sustain a series. Ms Durgin just needs to ramp up her storytelling a bit and expand her character development to the bad guys.
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