Waking Magic

The Leira Chronicles, Book 1

By: Martha Carr, Michael Anderle

Narrated by: Eva Wilhelm

Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's summary

Solve a murder, save her mother, and stop the apocalypse? No problem. She has a foul-mouthed troll on her side.

For Austin homicide detective Leira Berens, happy is running down bad guys and solving crimes. And she's damn good at it.

Which is why when the Light Elf prince is murdered, the king breaks a centuries old treaty and crosses between worlds to seek her help.

Wait a minute. An Elf? Like from Lord of the Rings or something?

Yeah, Leira has a hard time accepting that. But it doesn't matter what she believes. Magic is real, and it's coming back with a bang.

The prince's death was only the beginning. Tracking down his killer is about more than just justice. It's saving the world.

If you're looking for a heroine who prefers fighting to flirting, this book is for you.

©2020 Martha Carr and Michael T. Anderle (P)2022 Tantor

Great start - Sketchy ending 3.5 stars

This is a serialized story and only one of the stated goals in the overall introduction was achieved and then it was blurred by the circumstances. Hence, one has to read the next book in the series to find out more. Unfortunately, lots of books are serialized like that. In those cases, I usually stop after the first book because I hate conclusions with cliff-hangers. Usually, the first book explains the overall issues so the following ones are essentially a needlessly drawn out story. Series that don't do this are the Evanovich, DeLeon, Craig Johnson, etc, etc. books. Each of their books have essentially the same people but tell an interesting story which has a satisfying conclusion. 'Awakening Mage' is also a slow awakening of the heroine's magic. This can still work but usually it becomes a ploy to drag the reader into buying more books.

Having said that, the early start of the book was pretty good. A strong heroine and colorful language with some fun. I found it easy to get through the book. However, I am not interested in chasing Saturday morning serials. I won't continue with the series.

Great book, poor narration

The narrator was terrible. The excessive downward inflection at the end of every phrase and sentence made this very difficult to listen to. All of the characters sounded the same. I thought the storyline and character development were great. Excellent humor as well. I won't continue with the series on audible because the narration isn't worth the price.

Great all around.

Great story and performance. Loved it!. Looking forward to the rest of the story. Thank you for taking me to another planet.

Good book and narration..

This was a fun book. I liked Leira and Correk, while they looked for the thief that stole a magic necklace and killed a prince.

No romance and the F-bomb was used 97 times.

As for the narration: Eva Wilhelm was okay. She forgot, once in a while, when a man was talking and he sounded like a woman, and vise-versa. Usually I hate women narrators because most of the men sound just like women, and the female narrators don't seem to care one bit. At least Eva Wilhelm did her best and will only get better with time. I'll listen to the rest of the series.