The Enchantment Emporium

By: Tanya Huff

Narrated by: Teri Clark Linden

The Gale family can change the world with the charms they cast, and they like to keep this in the family. Alysha Gale is tired of having all her aunts try to run her life, both personally and magically. So when the letter from her Gran arrives willing her a "junk" shop in Calgary, Alysha jumps at the chance. It isn't until she gets there that she realizes her customers are fey. And no one told her there's trouble brewing in Calgary - trouble so big that even calling in the family may not save the day.

©2009 Tanya Huff (P)2010 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Fantasy buffs will find plenty of humor, thrills and original mythology to chew on, along with refreshingly three-dimensional women in an original, fully realized world." ( Publishers Weekly)

Next book!

I just saw that Tanya Huff's second book for the Emporium series is coming out in November. I am so excited. I love Huff's characters and her style of writing. She writes a story about the Fey in modern life and makes it very original and fascinating.

I've read it again and again

Tanya huff is a favourite of mine, each of her books I've read more than once.

Mrs. Spock Attempts Fantasy!

What did you like best about The Enchantment Emporium? What did you like least?

Huff is an excellent writer, and this series is one I have particularly enjoyed. I bought the audio version to re-visit an old favorite.

The narrator was another story entirely.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Enchantment Emporium?

When I nearly peed my pants laughing so hard at the horrible narration and my husband and I enjoyed acting out the dialogue, as read by this narrator, as if it were a Saturday Night Live skit.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Teri Clark Linden?

My grandson, Elliot. He is two years old, and might have been able to inject a little bit of emotion into the piece. Seriously...just about anyone would have been better. This woman has a lovely voice, and she would be spot on for doing the audio supplements for history or science texts. But her Vulcan-like rendition made the story extremely confusing...and I already KNOW the story! When the characters are in the middle of the argument and you don't get that from the verbal cues until the fight's almost over...the narrator might be a bit too mellow to narrate fantasy/action novels.

Do you think The Enchantment Emporium needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

It has a follow up book. Two, in fact. I am patiently waiting for someone to get on the stick and produce the third book in audio format. I just downloaded the second one, which has a different narrator, praise the saints.

Any additional comments?

Frankly, this was worth the download just for the entertainment value. The story is awesome no matter what! But it is so rare to get a hold of a book with a narrator this badly miscast...it's actually priceless. Good show, Audible!

Good story bad narration

This is the first book by Tanya Huff I have read and I found it disjointed in the beginning, but the characters were well written and the story is interesting. The big down fall was Ms. Linden's performance was like listening to someone on tranquilizers reading the story. Over all the low price makes it worth a read.

Funny and Smart: Leaves You Wanting More

The Enchantment Emporium was my first introduction to Tanya Huff, and it was a great one! I love the setup of the Gale family: their mysterious magic and rituals, their seeming obsession over pies. This is one of those books that manages to strike the delicate balance between the absurd and the serious, between the characters' magic and their lives. On the one hand, many of the sections are laugh-out-loud funny, surprising us with clever turns of phrase and amusing characters and situations, while on the other hand, we feel the characters' heartbreak and longings as if they were our own. The Gale family is the perfect example of a large, over-bearing, supportive family: run by the powerful and spirited Aunties, it's the sort of family that might drive its members crazy, but will be there for them no matter what.

Teri Clark Linden's narration sparkles through the text. This is a book I've never seen in print form, and I can't imagine it any other way. To me, Linden's version of Alysha, Charlie, and the rest will always be the real thing.

I should have kept track of the number of strange looks I attracted as I listened to this story and this performance and laughed out loud while walking or cleaning with earbuds in. I'm sure the count would have gotten pretty high.

Great urban fantasy with a more 'folksy' mythology

Enjoyed this and the sequel a lot. Note that as others mentioned, the narrator is clearly American, and clearly doesn't know how to pronounce some Canadian words. There are occasional attempts at a Canadian accent. Didn't bother me at all, but I'm not Canadian :^)

Great story, let down by the narrator

The story is well worth a listen, if you can get past the narrator not knowing which character is speaking, or how to read punctuation.

Buy the book, not the recording

I love this book and have read it many, many times. I purchased the audiobook so I could listen to it on a roadtrip, but the narrator is just horrible. For example, there are several occasions where the narrator reverses the voices in a conversation, most memorably in a conversation between Allie and David near the end of the book. As it is written, it's perfectly clear. As it is recorded, it makes no sense at all. Odd words are emphasized in many, probably most, of the sentences in the book. Pauses are inserted where there's no cause for them. This is honestly the worst narrator I've ever heard. For this book, buy the hard copy.

Love the book, don't care for the narration

I really enjoy this urban fantasy and have read the book more than once. While the story is about a very different family that happens to have unconventional sexual mores, it is not at all explicit. The narrator did accents fairly well, but read the book rather than narrating it. Her intonation was often flat and she emphasized the wrong words, often making it harder to understand the meaning. She also mispronounced a few words, which I would have forgiven if she had actually done more than a flat reading of the story. Towards the end she even mixed up the male and female voices for half of a conversation. A couple of times her accents carried over into the next person talking. While I love the story, the narration was a big disappointment.

Good story, very poorly read

Is there anything you would change about this book?

The only thing I would change about the book is the narrator.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

The narration sounded as though the book had just been picked up by a high school student and read without any preparation. The narrator didn't seem to know what the sentences being read were about, or who was supposed to be speaking, nor any sensitivity to the humor in Huff's writing.