Wednesday, 5 April 2023

SILVER CLOUDS DIRTY SKY


Silver Clouds Dirty Sky by Orlando A. Sanchez
Book 4 of the Montague & Strong Case Files series
Genre: urban fantasy
Format: ebook


About Silver Clouds Dirty Sky:
London Bridge is falling...but it's not their fault...mostly.

Montague and Strong have left the building — in fact, they’ve left the continent.

When a teleportation circle sends them to London, The Penumbra Consortium — and older, darker version of the Dark Council requests Montague & Strong look into the murder of the leading demonologist, Mage Nigel Warrenton. There are a few complications — Tristan is being hunted by Golden Circle magistrates, Michiko must return to take her seat on the Council, before her brother is challenged, and demons are roaming the streets of London.

Now, with the help of Thomas Rafael — a mage who doesn’t believe in magic, they must avoid the magistrates, return Michiko to the Dark Council, and stop London from becoming a demon breeding ground.

What could possibly go wrong?

Montague & Strong dive into another thrilling adventure as they face off against demons, dark powers, and disasters as they try to save London from annihilation!
Source: Info in the About Silver Clouds Dirty Sky was taken from GoodReads at https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37905685-silver-clouds-dirty-sky on 02/07/2019.

Buy Link(s):


Peaches
Peaches
My Thoughts:
It is becoming a trademark of this series that every subsequent book starts right where the previous book left off. And that is kind of growing on me.

And then, we get to see a Peaches arguing philosophy with Simon! Woohh!! This is Simon we are talking about... Simon who gets a headache every time Tristan tries to explain anything to him that is more complicated than eating! Good thing that Peaches' "philosophic phase" didn't last very long...or our protagonist might just develop a permanent migraine! And that wouldn't do, now would it?! He gotta fight the baddies and get beat up... again... I think this is my favouritest book yet in the series.

This is the book that introduced me to the Ian Dex series. And the urban fantasy geek in me cheered to have stumbled into another promising series! We seem to be getting a lot of "Dexes" here. Uncle Dex. Ian Dex. Mmm...

Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 4.5
Character development = 5
Story itself = 4.5
Writing Style = 4
Ending = 4
World building = 4.5
Cover art = 4
Pace = 3.5
Plot = 3

Overall Rating: 4.5 out of 5 cherries


Books in the Montague & Strong Case Files series:
Book 0.1: THE WAR MAGE   Book 0.5: NO GOD IS SAFE   Book 1: TOMBYARDS & BUTTERFLIES   Book 2: FULL MOON HOWL   Book 2.5: THE DATE   Book 3: BLOOD IS THICKER   Book 4: SILVER CLOUDS DIRTY SKY   Book 5: HOMECOMING   Book 6: DRAGONS & DEMIGODS   Book 6.5: A PROPER HELLHOUND   Book 7: BULLETS & BLADES   Book 7.5: HELLHOUND BLUES: A BREW & CHEW ADVENTURE   Book 8: HELL HATH NO FURY   Book 9: REAPING WIND   Book 9.5: A PERFECT CUP   Book 10: THE GOLEM   Book 10.5: SAVING MR K   A Montague & Strong Short Story Collection   Book 11: DARK GLASS   Book 12: WALKING THE RAZOR   Book 13: REQUIEM     Book 15: STORM BLOOD   Book 16: REVENANT   Book 17: BLOOD LESSONS   Book 18: BROKEN MAGIC   Book 19: LOST RUNES


Meet The Author

About Orlando A. Sanchez:
Orlando Sanchez has been writing ever since his teens when he was immersed in creating scenarios for playing Dungeon and Dragons with his friends every weekend. An avid reader, his influences are too numerous to list here. Some of the most prominent are: J.R.R. Tolkien, Jim Butcher, Kat Richardson, Terry Brooks, Piers Anthony, Lee Child, George Lucas, Andrew Vachss, and Barry Eisler to name a few in no particular order. The worlds of his books are urban settings with a twist of the paranormal lurking just behind the scenes and generous doses of magic, martial arts, and mayhem. He currently resides in Queens, NY with his family and can often be found in the local coffee shop where most of his writing is done.

FTC Disclosure:
This book was purchased with private funds.
No money received for this review.

Sunday, 5 March 2023

SPELL HOUND


Spell Hound by Lindsay Buroker
Book 2 in the Witch In Wolf Wood series
Narrated by Vivienne Leheny
Genre: urban fantasy
Format: ebook & audiobookAudiobook


About Spell Hound:
Since Morgen Keller arrived in the small town of Bellrock, she’s learned that magic is real, fought battles with werewolves, and managed to turn the local witches into enemies. As an introverted database programmer, she’s not equipped to handle any of this.

Fortunately, she has an ally: the fearsome werewolf Amar.

Unfortunately, one of the witches branded him and can take control of him whenever she wishes.

To have a chance of freeing her werewolf ally, Morgen must learn to harness the power she inherited from her grandmother. She may also have to find a familiar, confront a powerful witch, and admit that she has feelings for Amar. What could go wrong?
Source: Info in the "About Spell Hound" was taken from GoodReads at https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58985740-spell-hound on 18/04/2022.

Buy Link(s):
  Audible Books


Zorro

[Image Credit:
Peter Walkden
Accessed: 19/04/2022]
My Thoughts:
It is only while reading book 2 that the thought occurred to me... why did grandma not warded her property? Maybe because she thought she was too strong or at least strong enough to combat enemies in her own grounds? It did not seem to stop poachers from stealing the glowing mushrooms in her property... Or was grandma happy to share with others what was growing in her property? That does not seem to be the case judging by what Amar is saying about him being a protector of Wolf Wood... Things don't add up here. But these inconsistencies are very easy to willfully ignore, seeing that the book is giving me enjoyable reading time.

The ending is still a cliffhanger but also closed the dilemma in the book quite nicely. I appreciated that given this author's fondness for leaving threads hanging for endings.

Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 4.5
Character development = 4
Story itself = 4
Writing Style = 4
Ending = 4
World building = 4.5
Cover art = 5
Pace = (7 hrs and 50 mins listening time)
Plot = 3
Narration = 5

Overall Rating: 4.5 out of 5 cherries


Books In The Witch In Wolf Wood Series:
Book 1: MIND OVER MAGIC Book 2: SPELL HOUND Book 3: ANY WITCH WAY Book 3.5: HOOT AND HOWLER Book 4: MOMENT OF TOOTH Book 5: CHARMED AND DANGEROUS

 
Meet The Author

About Lindsay Buroker:
Full-time indie fantasy/scifi author who loves hiking, tennis, and vizslas.


The Narrator

About Vivienne Leheny:
For over two decades, Vivienne Leheny has worked professionally in New York City and Los Angeles as an actor, voiceover artist and writer. She’s appeared on Off-Broadway and regional theatre stages, been screened at numerous film festivals (including Sundance in the 2019 opening night film: AFTER THE WEDDING), toured the northeast doing stand-up, and her writing has been published in national publications.

Vivienne has built a successful audiobook narration business, reading under her own name as well as under the pseudonyms, “Nola Zandry” and “Lily Collingwood.” She has a home studio and records using punch & roll software. Currently narrating six ongoing series, she also has numerous stand-alone book narrations, all of which are doing brisk sales on Audible, Amazon and iTunes. She’s narrated titles for Harper Collins, Macmillan, Recorded Books, and Simon & Schuster, among other audiobook publishers.

Vivienne will soon be recording her 150th audiobook narration.

Her audiobook narration course, The Voice in their Ear, has been a sell-out Maine Media Workshops+College, where she’s also taught her Putting Your Voice to Work: Building a Career in Voiceover curriculum, while her Breaking Into Audiobooks seminar for the SAG Foundation fills up quickly and with long wait lists. She’s also taught audiobook narration at the Caymichael Patten Studio.

She’s recorded over a thousand promotions for NBC programming (Saturday Night Live, Nightly News, Days of our Lives, Late Night with Conan O’Brien), including over a decade with The Today Show. She’s also done promotional spots for HBO, Showtime, and Bravo. Vivienne has voiced numerous national commercial campaigns, including Coca Cola, Fruit of the Loom, Florida Orange Juice, Bristol Meyers Squibb, Maxwell House and Revlon.

Her narration work has run the gamut, from Chain Gang Girls on Oxygen to Charles and Di: Once Upon a Time on TLC, from Fine Living’s Esquire’s Man at His Best to the six-part series Killer Outbreaks on Animal Planet, where she was the voice of the Bubonic Plague and West Nile Virus. She’s also the voice for the mysterious and disturbing “Phoenix Project” in the popular video game Assassin’s Creed, Unity.



FTC Disclosure:
The ebook and audiobook were bought with private funds.
No money received for this review.