A Darker Shade of Magic

Shades of Magic, Book 1

By: V. E. Schwab

Narrated by: Steven Crossley

A Darker Shade of Magic is the incredible first installment of the Shades of Magic series, from number one New York Times best-selling author V.E. Schwab.

Most people only know one London; but what if there were several? Kell is one of the last Travelers - magicians with a rare ability to travel between parallel Londons. There’s Grey London, dirty and crowded and without magic, home to the mad king George III. There’s Red London, where life and magic are revered. Then, White London, ruled by whoever has murdered their way to the throne. But once upon a time, there was Black London....

©2015 V. E. Schwab (P)2015 Tantor

Critic reviews

"A Darker Shade of Magic has all the hallmarks of a classic work of fantasy. Schwab has given us a gem of a tale...." (Deborah Harkeness)

A slow burner but worth it!

I found this hard to get into but towards the middle and end I was hooked. The character development is fantastic, as is the alternating narration between them. The narrator's voice isn't the most gripping though, albeit well performed.

Amazing!

I absolutely love the fact that while Lila isn't normal it isn't a huge part of her character! Thanks to Kelsey's trailer I found these books and I love them! KelseyForLila

Please re-record

The first time I actually had to force myself to ignore the voice acting and just listen to the story. I honestly found Steven Crossleys people painfully stupid, clichee and annoying.

Story in itself was actually both creative and good, but there is a lot of heros dropping important items at critical times or stopping to reflect on the world situation instead of using their advantage.

the narrator is terrible

Very good story, but the narrator is terrible. Through the dialogue I could tell the characters were meant to be likeable, but the voice acting is awful, and the emotional tone consistently wrong.

Entertaining but predictable

Pretty black and white characters. Good and bad type of thing. Not a lot of nuance or character development other than the protagonists

the narrator was completetly wrong

if I have to hear another terrible exclamation from this narrator I will go insane... I'll be buyong the physical books for this series

read something else

this book has some nice ideas but it's badly written and uses most cliches you can think of.

Boring and unoriginal

Cardboard characters, boring story. Not enjoyable in any way. Avoid this if you can