The Dark Lord of Derkholm
by Diana Wynne Jones (Gollancz, 1998); audiobook read by Jonathan Broadbent (Clipper, 2013)
The concept is clever—explaining at last the genre-wide recrudescence of fantasy dark lords!—and Derk and Mara’s human-griffin family makes a pleasing point of (embracing) difference. The story itself, however, merely demonstrates cliché, dragging, meandering and bloviating to no great purpose.