"If your life was based on a lie, would you risk it all to tell the truth?

At Montverre, an ancient and elite academy hidden high in the mountains, society’s best and brightest are trained for excellence in the grand jeu—the great game—an arcane and mysterious competition that combines music, art, math, poetry, and philosophy. Léo Martin once excelled at Montverre but lost his passion for scholarly pursuits after a violent tragedy. He turned to politics instead and became a rising star in the ruling party, until a small act of conscience cost him his career. Now he has been exiled back to Montverre, his fate uncertain.

But this rarified world of learning Léo once loved is not the same place he remembers. Once the exclusive bastion of men, Montverre’s most prestigious post is now held by a woman: Claire Dryden, also known as the Magister Ludi, the head of the great game. At first, Léo feels an odd attraction to the magister—a mysterious, eerily familiar connection—though he’s sure they’ve never met before.

As the legendary Midsummer Game approaches—the climax of the academy’s year—long-buried secrets rise to the surface and centuries-old traditions are shockingly overturned."

I am unsure of what I just listened to. Let's start with the pros. The narrators are good. Not great, but good.

Cons. What is the grand jeu? I'm still not sure I know. I found the story discombobulated at best and antisemitic at the very worse. An overall feeling of ick was present for most of the book. I am aware that writing is an art form, but a book about Christians being persecuted in similar ways of the Holocaust was unnecessary. Maybe I'm missing the entire theme of this book, but that is how it came off to me.

The Betrayals is an extremely atmospheric novel. with the abstract concept of the grand jeu, a tragic death, a nefarious government party, and elusive characters, There's a mysterious feel to everything. and I believe this is what makes it most fun to read!

Loved the narration in this audiobook - though the style of speaking used for one of the characters in the flashbacks kind of gives away one of the book's biggest twists, but that's really only if you're actively looking for it. Gorgeous book, the narration matched the text perfectly.

Even though the story was a slow build, I enjoyed the book. I liked the characters and how I didn't figure everything out right away. The end may bot be satisfying to all readers, but I liked it.

I really did not enjoy this. I couldn’t make it to the end. Some books just don’t translate well to audio. None of the characters were interesting, they were actually unlikeable.

THE BETRAYALS by Bridget Collins (The Binding) has an absolutely striking cover. In this fantasy novel, Collins uses multiple perspectives to weave her tale and build suspense. It is all rather dark and quite complicated. We were lucky enough to be offered an audiobook for a road trip this summer, but found that the title did not hold our interest in that setting. I hope to pick up a hard copy in the future and in the meantime, will give THE BETRAYALS a neutral rating of 3.

This book will stay with me for a while. I tried to puzzle together the events from each character’s point of view and the ending was worth the wait. Reminds me a bit of Harry Potter without all the wizardry.

The narration of this book was beautiful. The three narrators did an excellent job of creating atmosphere and playing their parts. Unfortunately the plot was so confusing I lost interest about a third of the way through. The author never does seem to explain the "games" and after a while it just felt like Harry Potter flashing back to his angsty Hogwarts days without moving the story forward. I did appreciate the point of view of Claire, the female Magister Ludi, and the honesty with which she describes her place in the male dominated school.

I am not really sure if I liked this book or not. I found it hard to follow at times. I wanted the author to explain more what the Grander was and why it was so important. This book talked a lot about politics and the percussion of the Christians and how they shouldn't be allowed to be a part of the Grander. Overall the past to present why the book was written increased the confusion of the story. I am not sure that I would recommend this book to anyone with how much is not explained and how little you learn about the overall story of the book.

Though it took awhile to get me engaged, I found myself slowly drawn into the high-stakes competition and the rivals-to-lovers trope that plays out with a surprising twist. A lush, if slightly slow read.

This story had... a lot. Too much? Probably. At least one of the point of view characters offers nothing to the overall plot of the book, and the idea of the “purity laws” was poorly defined and felt like it went nowhere. It might have been okay if the book didn’t also have a semi-mystical “game” which was never defined or fleshed out. I don’t need an author to answer all my questions, but I do think that having a more concise plot would have given Collins more room to explore the story she IS telling.

Collins has great atmospheric prose though!

(I listened to the audiobook, and both narrators were good!)

*I received a free copy of this audiobook in order for an honest review

This was a well. Written book. Narrator was good and the story line although slower at first quickly created a good plot.
I liked the characters and yes, this book is my second one read by the author. Can't wait for the third!

The Betrayals is a beautiful slow burn of a story that unfolds from multiple perspectives at a prestigious school for ‘grand jue’, a game that is in some ways equal parts mediation, music, dance, and philosophy. If you’re expecting a detailed description of the game or how it works or the world out side of the school, this books may not be for you, but I absolutely loved it. While multiple perspectives and time jumps can be difficult to pull of, this was so well written that the addition of other characters added to the story and the understanding of the character’s motivations, especially on audio with different voice actors.

The Betrayals is a study in relationships and coming of age and the small betrayals that build over time when we fail to let ourselves love and trust not just others, but ourselves. I found myself looking back on relationships from my past and the choices I made. The characters are complex and fully formed with distinct motivations, fears, and strengths.

The narration of the audiobook is beautifully done and added to the story. The voice actors did a wonderful job bringing the characters to life and adding emotion to every phrase. This is one of those stories I will think back on over time and reread.

This was a beautiful slow burn of a novel, with a focus heavy on the characters and less on the outside world, which I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed.

This story alternates between the points of view of Leo, a disgraced party member exiled to "study the national game" at the school he'd hoped to never return to; Claire Dreyden, the first and only female Magister Ludy ever at Montverre, the school; and the Rat, who hides within the walls of Montverre and is privy to many mysterious goings-on. Montverre is all about the study of what is referred to as "the national game," a combination of maths, music, religion, and philosophy, which the reader only understands in the abstract and to be honest was a bit confusing at first, but incredibly interesting.

Claire and Leo both live lives built upon lies, and combined with a time of fascism and increasing purity laws that threaten their livelihoods as well as the future of Montverre, along with the secrets that the Rat alone sees, these create an intriguing novel that keeps the reader mulling over all the mysteries until the very end, and even a bit beyond.

Collins has a talent for creating worlds that feel absolutely whole, full of detail. This was a mesmerizing and lush story, with prose that sings. The audiobook was beautifully, carefully narrated.

The cover of this book is beautiful, which is what first drew me into this title and made me want to read this story. The title itself also as a certain simplistic appeal and intrigue to it, suggesting backstabbing and plots. Thus enticed by the cover and the title, I read the summary of the book and found that it promised a game played at an elite academy named Montverre. Being a fan of boarding school stories ranging from Harry Potter to A Separate Peace, I figured that I would give this work a try, hoping for a boarding school story featuring a compelling and perhaps ruthlessly competitive game. A sort of cross between Harry Potter and the Hunger Games maybe? That would be cool.

Sadly, that wasn't really what I got. The boarding school element of Montverre is intriguing when the author develops it, but unfortunately, it remains underdeveloped throughout the story, and becomes buried under too many competing plot threads. The grand jeu (as the game is called because the French is fancier, I suppose, given that the evidence suggests this story does not actually take place in an alternative version of France as the characters will make remarks like, "As the French say," suggesting that they themselves aren't French) is very pretentious with vague rules and mainly seems to be an opportunity for the author to impress us with her learning.

The politics of this story seem to focus on the rise of a fantasy/alternative history version of what is basically the Nazi party (though it is just called the Party in the book) and the dictator is just referred to only as "the old man." The most significant difference between the Nazis and this fantasy Party is that the Party persecutes primarily Christians instead of Jewish people (and other minority groups like people with disabilities). The Christians are made to wear crosses on their clothing like Jewish people were compelled to wear and are being driven into hiding throughout the country. One of our main characters, Leo Martin, is basically a high-up Party member in disgrace. So, that kind of diminishes his capacity to be a sympathetic character.

The other main character, Claire Dryden, is not much more sympathetic, given that she seems to be a woman who kind of hates her own gender and is so determined to prove that she is not like other girls, which is one of the tropes that irritates me most in a female character. It's like authors feel that the only way to make a strong female character is to hit us over the head with the fact that this female character is not like other women (because other women are weak or despicable or whatever). It's one of those tropes that I wish would just die so that made it hard for me to enjoy the sections from Claire's perspective.

My favorite sections were the diary entries from Leo Martin's time as a schoolboy since it had some of that boarding school drama and at least he hadn't associated himself with the Nazi analogue Party yet as well as the Rat's perspective.

The writing itself in terms of technique and prose was competent throughout even if the book did drag a bit in the middle.

I listened to this story as an audiobook, and I thought the narration was pretty top tier. There were separate readers for the male and female point of views, which I appreciated. The book was pleasant to listen to, which did help balance out the flaws I noticed along with the quality of the writing itself.

All in all, the strengths for me were in the beautiful cover, the pleasant narration, the quality of the writing itself, the schoolboy diary entries of Leo Martin, and the perspective of the Rat. The weaknesses were in the book's tendency toward pretension, losing itself in the competing storylines of politics and the boarding school game, and generally dragging its feet in the middle.

The book, therefore, is something of a mixed bag. Evaluating the strengths and the weaknesses thus, I would give the Betrayals a three out of five stars for what it does right and for what it does wrong. It doesn't live up to its beautiful cover and intriguing premise, but it definitely has some redeemable and interesting elements beyond just its cover and premise.

This book was a little too ambiguous for my taste. The Grand Jeu was confusing and never really explained. The writing was beautiful but it just fell a little short for me. I listened to the audiobook and enjoyed the narrators.

This was a hard book to get into. With four point of views it was slightly confusing at times. Also, the story line felt slow. The writing was very descriptive and felt that it dragged on. I felt very lost while listening to this book and didn't understand what was going on. This was a struggle to get through. I almost DNF.

I don't know what it was about this one, but it was difficult for me to get into. I just couldn't bring myself to care about the grand jeu or the characters. They were unlikable, but normally that doesn't bother me.

I was very disappointed in this book. I listened to the audio, and loved the narrators' voices, which is probably the only reason I listened all the way to the end. The character development was sorely lacking and the world building was barely average. The plot was slow and laborious. I felt zero connection with the characters and could not figure out why I should care about the abstract notion of the games they were creating.