Angelina

Dead Realm, Book 1

By: Joel Shepherd

Narrated by: Sarah Mollo-Christensen

In a world of magic and modernity, fates are about to collide.

Angelina Donati has come to New York to kill a man. She holds the magician Eli Leventhal responsible for killing her friend. As the gifted problem child of a house of magical assassins, she does not expect that Leventhal's vast age, wealth, and power will save him.

But Eli Leventhal is gathering great forces to fight a far larger war against his longtime magician foe—Riley, the mayor of New York, whose real name is something far older and more frightening. On opposing ends of Manhattan Island, the world's two last remaining grand magisters are preparing for an epic showdown, with the Earth, and its possible destruction, as their prize.

In a world where the magical classes draw power from one of 12 Realms, Angelina's powers are wild and strange. Most Realms are living, while one lies dormant. But it is prophecized that from the Dead Realm, old horrors shall rise....

©2023 Joel Shepherd (P)2023 Audible Inc.

Not his best

Compared to the Cassandra Kresnov series, the Spiral Wars series, and the Trial of Blood and Steel series, this one comes across as so-so. It wasn't a total waste of time, but it leaves me uninterested in continuing the series. However, the reader is very good. She handles accents and male voices very well indeed.

Not quite disappointed but not happy

Off the bat, It is really important to note that this is a YA book and if you didn't pay attention to the tags and just grabbed it because it was Joel Shepard that can come as a surprise.

That being said, I feel like this one wasn't quite up to the standard that I've come to expect from Joel Shepard. The world building is interesting but it's not quite as robust or laid out as elegantly as some of the other his other series

I feel like a lot of the plot hinged on a particularly bad tactician leading the good guys (so bad I was stuck convinced he was playing 4D chess), some deeply bone-headed teenage stupidity and arrogance ( I don't really hold that against it ), and a villain that I'm still not convinced could not have been solved by the liberal application of high explosives or a hypersonic round to the head.

Overall, I think this is a really rocky start That's not quite up to the polish I was hoping for but I am very interested to see where this world goes moving forward.

A great paranormal story from Joel Shepherd

In a welcome change of pace from hard sci-fi, Joel Shepherd delivers an excellent blend of the paranormal with a YA bent. Characterization and world building were first rate as with any other novel he has authored. With plot twists and turns plus kinetic action sequences the book kept me on edge until the end. The narrator did a fantastic job and her excellent Italian accent made for great listening. I have the sequel queued up and can’t wait to hear what happens.

Disappointed.

1. This was not up to the quality I expect from Joel Shepherd.
2. More often than not I felt like this should have had the Young Adult tag along with the Contemporary, Urban and Paranormal ones that it does have.
3. Much of the stories progression is brought about by idiotic teenagers behaving in contrivedly inane ways to the point that I seriously considered just giving up on the book entirely, followed by returning it for a refund.
4. Then there is the way it is written/narrated. I found that more than slightly distracting to listen to throughout with it never becoming something that I got used to.
5. The Narrator sounding overwrought and weepy when also narrating, not the character emotion which is fine and good, but the third person view or whatever its called.
6. I also found that the main character and her variable boyfriends blatant lack of agency just being sock puppets was Bad. Like playing a overly linear non open-world computer game, very forced.
7. On the whole this first book came across as overly forced in setting up the story world for what I guess is coming. I honestly expected better from this author.