I had another long journey in the horsebox, and this audio book filled the time very nicely!
Burned by A. Blythe
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Alyse Winters is a djinni. More than that, she’s a highly rated covert operative for a supernatural agency. And she’s pretty impressed with herself, though to be fair, she has the talents to support her ego.
That is, until her mission falls apart around her, and suddenly she’s cut loose with no backup, and her handler seems to have vanished. She finds herself wearing copper cuffs that cut off her magic, and dumped back in her old town of Philadelphia, where too many people hold a grudge against her, villains and former boyfriends included.
To make matters worse, someone is murdering people, and she keeps finding herself at the crime scenes.
I listened to this audio book in one session, on a long drive, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I’ve been meaning to take in another djinni book for a while, and this one didn’t disappoint. While I can’t say I analysed the plot in the way I would when reading, I know it was easy to follow, the narrator did a fantastic job with making all the characters sound distinct, and the dialogue was great. The story hits the ground running and the pace rarely lets up for more than a brief breather, the humour-particularly some of the situations she finds herself in, and some of the wonderfully outrageous minor characters – kept me smiling and the range of characters and their varied mythos all worked really well for me.
This book is a great set-up for the series to come. The mystery of why Alyse finds herself in this predicament isn’t at all resolved in this instalment, but the murders that form the backbone of the plot are wrapped up neatly by the end. I thoroughly look forward to reading (or hearing) subsequent books to find out more about Alyse’s situation, which is deliciously fraught with promised complications and dangers to come.
I received this audio book from the author in return for an unbiased review. All thoughts on it are my own.
deborahjay 