kimbacaffeinate
Written on Oct 11, 2018
- While the central story of a girl who doesn’t know she has powers and secret magic police forces aren’t knew, Byrne offers fun elements from wand selections to action-packed cases.
- The motley cast of characters who train with our petty thief, Lexa Blackmoon, were fun, each brought a different skill set and left me excited to work cases with them again. Notice I said work. Byrne allows the reader/listener to slip into the fast-paced story and become caught up in the world and different realms.
- I think while not nearly as complex, fans of Harry Potter, schools of magic etc will enjoy this series.
- The story is a fast-paced and actioned-packed allowing you to become quickly immersed in the story.
- You will find supernatural creatures from elves, gnomes, vampires, shifters and mages in this world.
- The characters are adult, but youthful making this perfect for fans of NA or those transitioning.
- The cases the team work were exciting from cringe worthy villain to secret crime syndicates trying to take over the realm.
- It looks like each book will feature an action-packed case while it develops the characters. It has great potential.
- Lexa is already showing signs of being quite the kick-ass officer and I am looking forward to seeing her growth.
- Nikiya Palombi did a wonderful job of narrating and I appreciated not only the voices she created but her ability to capture their emotions from annoyance to fear.
Decaffeinated Aspects:
- The world is fun, and elements were familiar, but things happen quickly without a lot of world-building or development. Since this is the first book, I will pick up the second audio and see if it develops more.
- I loved the narrator, but occasionally I stumbled across an author who uses “he said”, “she said” at the end of sentences in conversation excessively. Now when I read a book, I barely notice, my eyes slip right over these identifiers, but on audio it's annoying. Scream worthy annoying. They can change it and I hope the author works on this even if they only tweak the audio versions. I think Palombi’s voices are enough. Another author I love John Scalzi had books like this on audio, and he changed the way he writes because it annoyed him too.