Volatile Bonds (Prospero's War, #4)

by Jaye Wells

[Melanie]

4.5 stars

My review and an extended sample of the audiobook are posted at Hotlistens.com.

I really love this series. Kate Prospero is a great character. She’s a detective for the Babylon Police Department, working as a liaison for MEA (Magical Enforcement Agency). She has a unique background. She was raised in the magical version of the mafia. Her uncle was the head of one of the covens. She cooked dirty magic and showed a lot of promise. Until her mother died. Then she left the coven and worked to become a cop. She’s also raising her younger brother.

In this book, Kate is trying to solve a murder. The victim happens to be the cousin of the leader of the sex coven, who happens to be a hermaphrodite, like literally half male and half female. They (in the previous books the pronoun was he/she until you knew which half you were actually talking to, but they decided to go to the plural because of the marriage) are also marrying each other. It was supposed to make them immortal.

While Kate is trying to solve this case, she’s also still got to deal with being a single guardian to her teenage brother. She was trying to keep him completely away from magic because of her history. But she has recently given in to let him learn clean magic from one of her teammates on the MEA. Now he’s gone behind her back to join a private school with magic.

I love this series. It has some really weird characters (besides the hermaphrodite there are also a set of conjoined twins. One is a perpetual baby who has the mind and voice of man. The other is a large woman with a very undeveloped mind). I also love the more normal characters. Kate is great, as is her younger brother. There is also Baba, a witch (she doesn’t have magic, but practices Wiccan and makes some herbal remedies). She used to live next door until she had some financial issues and moved in with Kate. There is also the MEA team, one of which is her friend with benefits, but she won’t call him a boyfriend. There’s also the mayor, the first adept or magic using mayor, who also happens to be Kate’s ex-boyfriend who was also in the illegal dirty magic coven. They are all great characters.

I also like mysteries in this series. I was really caught off guard on this one. I love all the police procedure. The world is extremely interesting. I love all the different magics that are used in this series. It is a very unique world. My earbuds are glued to my ears from start to finish.

Narration
Morgan Hallett does a great job with the narration. There are a lot of weird characters in this series, and she does a wonderful job with all of these voices. I love both her voices for male and females. I really have to call her out for her great narration of Mary, the large female half of the conjoined twin. If you haven’t given her a try, I do recommend her.