The Magician's Brother

The Magician's Brother, Book 1

By: HDA Roberts

Narrated by: Kevin Kemp

In my world, magic is an everyday thing.

It's on street corners; it's in our schools; our homes, and even our governments. Magic carpets share the sky with jets, international boxing shares air time with magical duelists. It's a whole mess, but nobody consulted me before outing every mage on the planet.

My twin brother is a Wizard and thinks he's the only magician in the family. It's actually a little funny that he hasn't suspected anything different over the last 17 years - with my constantly need to keep his idiot face out of danger and stupidity - but that's not today's problem. You see, someone's trying to kill him.

It started off with a shadow monster that was all but immune to my magic attacking him at school, and it went steadily downhill from there, meandering through an encounter with a succubus - a species I was told categorically didn't exist anymore - to nearly getting abducted by murderous homeless men and blasted by the government's anti-magic police. And that was just Monday!

Now, I'm trying to help the idiot while also doing my level best to keep him from finding out about my own powers (which are frankly so sinister that I was terrified of my own shadow for the first decade of my life). I have to make sure, in my blundering about, trying to solve a mystery that I can't trust the Supernatural Crimes Authority to investigate correctly, that I don't draw the attention of the people with horrific monsters at their beck and call. Family can be such a pain....

©2021 HDA Roberts (P)2021 Podium Audio

Great book!

I was pleasantly surprised by this book and I'm excited to see where this series goes. Definitely deserves more attention and reviews.

amusing and fun

it was well written and interesting. it was different and unexpectedly sarcastic. i can't wait to read the rest

Super compelling and fun read!

The narrator of the book, Kevin Kemp, was incredibly compelling. I enjoyed every bit of snarky inflection, the clearly defined characters, and how his tone brought all the emotion and action to life.

Some of the delivery gave me David Tennant as The Doctor vibes when he was hedging what he was saying (“Weeeeell…”).

Can’t wait to see more from the author, HDA Roberts, and the narrator, Kevin Kemp.

Enjoyed! Different take on magic

This book was enjoyable. No constant defeat. Subtle underdog using his intelligence. Didn’t disappoint. Look forward to the next book.

Could have been a lot better.

It was entertaining but the main character is just so silly. He’s supposedly smart but trusts easily and puts himself into stupid situations. He even goes to the government of all people after committing several crimes lol. It’s all just forgiven. Just nonsense. This could have been so much better if the main character was actually clever. Just another stupid genius.

Better than the sum of its parts.

It's a typical "light novel" style coming of age story, but it's better than the sum of its parts: magic school; overpowered main character; interesting supporting cast; well thought out world building. I read the entire 7 book (at the time of the writing of this review) series on Kindle before picking up the first audiobook. I can say that story stays strong. I was a bit surprised by the choice of voice for the main character -- I found him a bit mature sounding for a theoretical 17 year old -- but I got used to it. :-)

A real hit from my daughter and I

My daughter and I listen to this book together and we are in. We can’t wait to listen to the next one.

Meets and exceeds expectations!

I've read all of the series to date and love all of them. I know that the 1st book needed a lot of editing and was worried if that would change the flow of the audible. Thankfully it did not.

Kevin Kemp was the perfect choice for this book! He definitely captured Matty's personality and brings this fun story to life. Reading the books, I got the feeling that Matty was telling the listener his own story. Kemp definitely seems to have latched onto that somewhat unique writing style. Listening to this, I can imagine myself sitting in a sunny, comfy room as Matty re-lives these crazy days.

HDA Roberts, thank you for this amazing series! I truly look forward to hearing book 2!

I'm Hooked

Can't wait for the whole series. brilliantly read. I'm starting the 2nd book straight away.

Is very much YA book.

While there are adult themes in this book it is a young adult book. I would say this is an age range between 13 and 17. Much like Harry Potter this is a mystery book with a magic theme. The characters are not very deep but the story is good for the reading level. The magic system is very much soft magic. There are very few rules in regards to how magic can be used. And often you'll find that the main character just knows how to do magic to get himself out of a situation. Well that can be off putting in some books, it is not so off putting in this book given the fact that this is very much a young adult book.

The story is about a twin. One twin is born to the light magic and the other twin is born to the shadow magic. Most of this book will revolve around the twin who is focused within the shadow magic. In the book he hides his magic from the world for varying reasons. And you spend the book essentially following him as he is more or less forced forced to show others that he has this magic. The main character is a likable character and tries to do good things.