Dead Lucky

Ghosts & Magic, Book 1.5

By: M.R. Forbes

Narrated by: Jeff Hays

When a strange message arrives through an even stranger channel, necromancer Conor Night is driven to discover its meaning, even if it takes a road trip that he might not be healthy enough to survive. Joined by his sexy partner and an undead wise-ass, he's about to rush headlong into a magic and mayhem-filled night in New Orleans that will leave his future riding on a roll of the dice.

Luck, be a lady....

Dead Lucky is a standalone novella set in the contemporary, urban fantasy world of Ghosts & Magic. It precedes Dead of Night in the timeline, and is a great place to sample the series, get a deeper look into Conor's backstory, or simply enjoy the ride.

©2014 Michael R. Forbes (P)2015 Michael R. Forbes

Dead Best

The Ghosts and Magtic Series continues to amaze, augmented with Jeff Hays' astounding narration.

Want to know how Conor got the dice? Buy this and find out.

Evil Voodoo Dice Hooray!

This was a fun, short prequel to the first novel in the series, Dead of Night.

I'll be honest, I bought this one more for the narration than the story (but still for the story, as I really liked the first book!). Finding out how he got the dice was pretty awesome.

Narration was amazing as is usual with Jeff Hays. The special effects helped immerse me in the experience, but I still maintain that like in the first book, the coughing fits and a few of the laughs sound forced and a bit awkward. I can easily get over that though, I guess. It's a personal preference, and some people probably dig it. The spooky evil voodoo ghost voices make up for it, for sure.

Love this series!

I loved the Ghosts and Magic series and was thrilled to see this on my suggestion page. This was an awesome prequel novella

Not quite human resources

As always, Jeff's performance is fantastic! In addition to his famous character voices, he uses voice effects for the non-humans. Our favourite half dead necromancer, his partner Danelle, and his wise cracking corpse Evan go on an impromptu mission to steal of a pair of dice that only necromancers can use. It's got action, a duct taped radiator hose, a 12 foot tall ogre, and snakes who just want to cuddle.

Conor at the beginning, when he finds his dice.

Would you consider the audio edition of Dead Lucky to be better than the print version?

Absolutely. We get a strong feel for the characters through voice and emotions that brings them to life for us.

What about Jeff Hays’s performance did you like?

It's always a pleasure to listen to Jeff narrate a story. Not only do we get different voices, but we get a few added effects with the characters (like Conor coughing). And, always what we are looking for, heart of the character. Jeff becomes who he voices. One of my favorites to listen to as he's so entertaining with his voice and the recording is seamless.

Any additional comments?

This novella is before Dead of Night in Conor's life time line. I'm listening to it after the second book. You can listen to this one at any time, before the series or during it. You get a great feel for Conor and the world.

This novella is one that would be very good to sample the world and Conor. We learn about the movement of the fields returning magic to the world. We see the touch it's had on the world, the changes in people and land.

This novella is neat because we get to see Danelle in action. If you've read the series, you'll understand what I mean. If you've not read the series, it's okay, you'll understand when you get to the series. But the cool thing here, we get to see how Conor came to possess the dice. This was something that was in the back of my mind, curious about.

Dirty deeds and double crosses

Prequel novella showing how Conor got his dice and dug himself a deep hole of karmic poo.
F bombs and wild things of the human and magical variety.
Narration is great, if you can get past him sounding like Charlie Sheen.

Not book 1.5

Thoroughly enjoyed this novella, but it's not book 1.5, if anything, it's 0.5 or 0.25. It takes place long before book 1. If continuity isn't an issue for you, then you won't mind.