The Ghoul Vendetta

An SPI Files Novel

By: Lisa Shearin

Narrated by: Johanna Parker

Length: 8 hrs and 50 mins

Publisher's summary

Men in Black meets Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum in the fourth urban fantasy novel in the series starring seer Makenna Fraser and her fellow agents at Supernatural Protection & Investigation.

The agents of Supernatural Protection & Investigations (SPI) are paid to keep the peace. But that's not so easy when an endless evil threatens to tear that peace to pieces. A vampire gangster's nephew is abducted off his yacht by a bunch of low-rent Creatures from the Black Lagoon. A slew of banks are knocked over by what looks like the cast of Night of the Living Dead. All of this may seem like the movies, but, I promise you, it's not.

I'm Makenna Fraser, seer for SPI, and I know the culprits aren't wearing disguises or makeup. They're real. Deadly real. Especially their leader - an ancient shapeshifter who leaves a trail of chaos and blood in his wake. Now he's taken my partner, Ian - and his intentions aren't pretty.

The worst part? This is only the beginning...the beginning of the end of the human race.

©2017 Lisa Shearin (P)2017 Audible, Inc.

Adventures of Awkward Romance lol

Im glad to have stumbled across this series, its been satisfying to see the characters develop professionally and personally. This series has a great expanse of interlocking myths and legends, from various cultures and I think thats one terrific blend of heroes and villains.My only gripe is that narrator (who did incredible overall) repeated many lines , which led to some confusing moments.Is that an editing issue or did it just slip by those few times?**I LOVE THIS SERIES**

the ghoul vendetta

ms.shearin has a fabulous imagination and ms.parker has a fantastic ability to perform this book to it's exciting perfection!!!

Unpredictable

This series keeps getting better and better. Won't spoil it but I love the hero! Funny + frightening + heart = an amazing story. More Yasha please.

Some issues with audio track.

Audio needs better track editing, 3 times sentences repeated, usually at chapter breaks. Narrator sounded a bit different. Story is great.

Funny Urban Fantasy, Cop Action Story

I was so excited to be back in the world of SPI and Makenna Fraizer. I’ve loved this series since I listened to the prequel story, Lucky Charms in the Night Shift Anthology. This series has been full of action, humor and really fun characters. Add in Johanna Parker’s narration and I’m in love.

Mac is a seer, she can see through glamours, which is how she got her job at SPI. SPI works around the world to keep the supernatural world unknown to humans. That includes policing supernaturals and covering up things that would out the supernatural world. It is staffed by humans, werewolves, shifters, dragons, dryads, nomes, you name it.

Most folks would say that history and mythology couldn’t be more different, but when you worked at SPI, you knew they were the same thing.

Her partner is a a former NYPD detective, Ian Byrne. They also have their driver, six foot eight Russian werewolf Yasha Kazakov, who is very protective of his partners and his suburban. The last character I’m going to mention is Rake Danescu. He’s a black mage and a goblin. He’s not often on the right side of the law, but he is a good “man”. He has also been dating Mac, much to Ian’s dislike (not because he has a love interest in her, he has a dryad lover. He is just protective of his partner and like I said, Rake not usually on the right side of the law).

So in this story, we have a vampire that is kidnapped and right in front of Mac and Rake, no less.. There is also a large theft from a bank that caters to supernaturals. Mac believes that the crimes are related. The vampires who safety deposit boxes were stolen aren’t wanting to cooperate. There are also weird sea creatures involved. Mac refers to “Creatures from the black lagoon”, “squid man” and the Kraken. There are also ghouls. Ian is in the real mix, as the ghoul that killed his NYPD partner is leaving clues for him.

If you’re looking for a funny urban fantasy/cop action story, this is a great series for you. Mac is a strong heroine. She is a human surrounded by supernatural individuals. While she is willing to take risks, she does realize that she isn’t as durable as the vampires, werewolves and others at SPI. But she is loyal and won’t be left behind if there is something she can do to help (there is a great scene with her boss and her where she makes this exact argument in this book). This is also a series where I could include a ton of snippets from the book, but I did try to limit myself.

“So you passed out,” I said for what felt like the umpteenth time. I was careful not to use the “f” word. For some reason, men had a problem being told they’d fainted. Passed out was better. Knocked out was best. It meant you’d probably been engaged in a manly activity like fighting or football when you’d gotten your bell rung.

A few minutes later, Rake made his way over to us, looking neither left nor right, not rushing but not dragging his feet, either. The press had spotted him and were shouting to get his attention. My date was a center of near-Zen calm as he pretended that none of them existed, especially Baxter Clayton. All I can say is that it was a good thing there was a police-guarded barricade or Rake would have been mobbed, and that would not have ended well. Goblins were rather like cats: neat, fastidious, mostly aloof, with an intense dislike of being dunked in water. If you did anything to them that they considered to be degrading or annoying, you’d better prepare to be shredded.
Rake Danescu was wet, his tuxedo was likely ruined, and though his expression was carefully blank, I knew that inside he made Grumpy Cat look like a cheerleader. But when he got close enough to us, he did at least acknowledge Ian.

**I like to thank the publisher for providing me with a copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

unfortunately not a good sequel

I was driven half crazy in the beginning before she named the villain, and therefore felt the need to over describe him over and over. She also pronounces the word Kraken wrong. I also have a pet peeve about characters (detectives, CSI, etc) not being good at their jobs, and the main character sucks at her job. I really lost interest in this book early on.

To much story retelling

2.5 **the story that you got to hear between her retelling of what felt like the full previous books sometimes was good. it got marks off for the huge chunks of all the previous books taking up more space then the actual current story at times, also constantly reminding is Ian is over protective every couple of paragraphs was alittle tedious. Honestly, by chapter 5 I was aggrivated enough to want my money back. If I am paying 14 bucks for a book I want current story not 3/4 retelling and 1/4 new story. I'm not sure if I will be moving forward with this series.

Messy, dull, formulaic

With the convoluted, contrived, mishmash of gods, ancient creatures, myths and legends, my mind wandered to the things that bugged me, starting with the author’s dogged insistence of having someone taken in each book, so they can be located as part of the climax. Book 1’s toupee guy, book 2’s lightning guy, book 3’s portal girl, and here it’s even worse because the author takes a main character out of the picture for most of the book.

There’s a lot of blah, blah info dumps to explain the unexplainable motivation of the villain to take over the world by destroying it. Just like in all the past books, there’s very little screen time for the villain, so there’s no listener investment. I didn’t love or hate anyone … with such flat characters, I could care less.

Then there’s the blah, blah recaps, where we’re reminded about the time in the demon realm, or that Kitty the portal girl’s distant relative was the gingerbread house-witch from Hansel and Gretel (like we were told in the previous book), or how Vivian Sakadrago (who for some reason must always be referred to using her full name, and never the boss, or Vivian) has a lady love. It felt like a third of this book was reminders, very little of which was necessary for this book’s plot.

Then there’s the Kraken. I pronounce it like ‘crackers,’ and not like ‘rocking.’
Release the Krocken just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
Probably wouldn’t have bothered me as much if I wasn’t so bored and annoyed by the rest.