Prestigium

A Fantasy Novel

By: Joseph Barone

Narrated by: Julie Hinton

When NYPD Detective Tanya Cora investigates a series of robberies of magical artifacts, followed by the murder of a college student by an apparent vampire, she is forced to consider a world beyond the one she was trained to deal with.

Even before her homicide assignment, she'd been aware of the magical undertones beneath the veil of reality. She'd dated a vampire in the past who was now dating a werewolf. He was old enough to remember when Masters wielded powers associated with the five basic Weavers: Air, Fire, Clay, Water and Madjick.

What she didn't know was her special place in the cosmos of Montavia, the name of her realm, situated between the Sky and the Under Realm, and smack in the middle of all the others. And because she was special, she became the target of the cult of Malentia, the Weaver of dark magic.

Caught in a rapidly heating cold war between the Legion of Malentia who seek to destroy all non-dark magic, and the Grand Weaver Society whose purpose is to protect it, Tanya's responsibility becomes the salvation of all magic from the hands of darkness.

©2016 Joseph Barone (P)2016 Joseph Barone

Not Quite My Cup of Tea

I don't like the way the story ended so abruptly. The narrator had that Brooklyn accent down pat.

4.5 Paranormal Detective Story

Summary: Tanya Cora gets drawn into a mystery with more magic than she bargained for.

Random Comments:
- There’s a lot of world-building here, so it takes some getting used to. The informational sessions are handled nicely in that the main character genuinely isn’t aware of most of it, so the reader gets to learn as she does.
- The MC – Tanya – has a habit of commenting on everything that can get tiresome on occasion, but mostly, it comes across as amusing.
- It’s definitely the sort of story that’s more fun to listen to than to read.
- I was slightly disappointed that the reader didn’t get more of a look at the epic battle being waged in the end. It’s referenced a fair amount and there are reasons not to describe all of it, but there definitely could have been at least some descriptions.
- I enjoyed how the story took familiar magic and elements and added its own twist.

Conclusion: A worthwhile fantasy story.
*I received a free copy. I chose to review it.

Unsusal story

The story started very slow and was hard to stay with, but then started to pickup and became rather interesting. Story line was different than most stories I have read which was a nice change. Story ended with most everything unresolved so to finish the story you will need to read the next book. I do not mind a series that continues with a ending for that section of the story with the while the story line continues in next book. but to just basically stop? No! So there by causing reader to have to buy next book just to get some closer is not a good way to get readers to continue to follow your work.