Reviewed by kimbacaffeinate on

3 of 5 stars

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Caffeinated Aspects:

  • 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.

This review was originally posted at Caffeinated Reviewer

Last modified on

Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 11 October, 2018: Finished reading
  • 11 October, 2018: Reviewed