**** Overall ***** Performance ****Story Review by Rox Burkey
James de Ciutiis builds the magical world of Leono akin to King Authur and His Knights of the Round Table. Leono is filled with good versus evil, magical creatures, Merlin, and the search for inner power of the rising king. The descriptions in this fantasy world are filled with bright colors, sounds from creatures and surroundings, and scents to tingle the nose of the reader. Each character plays a role in this enchanted tale. Listeners can select more than one favorite to cheer on in battles of love and honor.
When a young man is raised to become king and be responsible for his community, he will have fears, doubts, convictions, and opportunities to rise to the occasion. King Richard becomes an endearing character facing unforeseen challenges yet reaching his destiny. His brother, Prince Henry, grows into the shoes of the next in line, overcoming his worries with a devotion to family and community. He wears his heart on his sleeve with pride. Exploration of the magical creatures’ feelings provides an interesting dimension and tension to the story.
The narration by Marq Biagi highlights tension with his voice-acting techniques. The character voices are distinctive and perfectly executed. The voices of the fairies are beyond outstanding for example. Mr. Biagi can take any book and elevate it to an outstanding listen, and The Lion and the Unicorn is no exception.
Fans of fantasy will be spellbound as the action ramps to an unexpected conclusion. The winners and losers show their truth when the facades are removed. Readers will enjoy the revelations of inner strength and learn what provides long-lasting hope in this enchanted tale.
About the Author
James had a deep love of reading and writing fantasy tales, which straddle the line between reality and other worlds since childhood. A rejuvenation of this love came with the writing and production of the Minds Eye Studio’s film Kaptara. His ultimate desire as a writer is to take readers on wondrous journeys through worlds both real and imagined, traversing the varied pathways of the human psyche, to search for what truths there are to be found in both the magical and the mundane.
About the Narrator
Characters, On-Camera, Voice Acting, Accents/Dialects, Stage, Comedy Improv, Singing, and More!
With decades of experience in the industry, I record voice work for clients across the US and the world. I’m a strong character actor and leverage my diverse accent & dialect work into my roles (often cast as native British and Australian). I’m most well-known for my video game work as Vector the Crocodile and Professor Gerald Robotnik in the Sonic the Hedgehog games, Strider Hiryu in Strider, Brian Basco in the Runaway adventure games, and many recent and popular roles in Star Trek Online. I’ve had many leading and comedic roles in live theatre and was a founding member of the comedy improvisation troupe Mission Improvible. I’m also very experienced with work in training and educational products and adept with teleprompter. I’m seriously expanding into on-camera roles now and can soon be seen as a regular character in a feature film series for a major streaming platform.
