Tide of Tricks

Shadows of London Series, Book 2

By: Ariana Nash

Narrated by: Cornell Collins

A darkness runs deep beneath London....

Reeling from recent revelations and forced to lie for Kempthorne, the unthinkable happens: Dom fails the latent competency test. One more strike and he'll be deemed unstable, have his registration stripped, and the life he's come to love at Kempthorne & Co will be over.

If that weren't bad enough, someone is stalking him, taunting him. Someone who knows what Dom did all those years ago.

While Dom juggles Kempthorne's lies and his own shady past, latents are being murdered. The police won't help, so it's up to Dom, Kempthorne, and new recruit Kage (Hollywood) to find the killer, before they strike too close to home.

Dom soon finds himself at the heart of it all with his control slipping, his trick breaking free, and the shadows rising.

He's coming undone. And for unstable latents, there's only one way out....

Contains mature themes.

©2021 Ariana Nash (P)2022 Tantor

Interesting Story but with cliff hangers.

I really like these stories. The basic concept is that a minority of people, 'Latents', are capable of interacting with psychically charged artifacts, which can lead to catastrophic ends for anyone nearby. These artifacts are like a drug with unnatural pull to latents.

The main character is a latent and gay. Ex military, he works for an agency to identify and remove artifacts before they can be a hazard to other latents and the community.

The story is filled with intrigue and suspicion. The hero stumbles through the mysteries of murder and mayhem yearning for, and occasionally hooking up with other sexy investigators.

The story's only failure is that each book spends the last chapter setting the reader up for a cliffhanger. This is irritating and not needed since the basic story is enough to pull the reader to the next book.

Mr. Collins has a rich voice which carries the strong British accents well. I advise listening at a slower speed, say 95%, to enjoy his voice even more while keeping you from missing any of the dialog.

Great story. Great narration.

Well, okay, then. This was one of my favorite kinds of stories; an urban fantasy with mystery, intrigue, romance, angsty main characters, a dash of steamy romance, and enough tension to keep me listening/reading way past my bedtime. Toss in a narrator who offers up a pleasant voice and an excellent performance, and I will probably need to start on the next book right away. Yeah, I would love to offer up some more eloquent and gushing praise, but I need to find out what happens next, so... Just read the book if you like the same type of stories that I do.

Latents=Mutants?

Let me start with how much I enjoyed this book, both reading it and listening to it. It was attention grabbing and the story just kept building in a way that made me realize the whole series would be a keeper. Dom is one of those characters that makes you want only good things for him even though you know he's gonna have to bleed for it. He's a story of redemption, a guy from the wrong side of the tracks who did bad things in his past but is trying to make up for it. He has the classic Black Widow line of "red in his ledger" that he's trying to eradicate.

Dom's boss Kempthorne is cool and enigmatic, a bit of an asshole and the guy every reader wants to know more about. You just know there are so many secrets this guy has that he has to be Dom's love interest. Or is he? Because Dom seems to be attracted to the boy next door cowboy American Kage, not Kempthorne. Hmmmn...

The possible romance triangle is only one layer to this story. The others are about latents and artifacts and things Kempthorne is hiding and Dom's past and...

It's all very twisted and delicious and reminds me a bit of the X-Men. After all latents are mutants really. And Dom is like a British version of Gambit, a guy with charged playing cards who came from a New Orleans thieves gang. Dom came from an East End criminal gang and there's his trick, a pack of cards. Now, whether Kempthorne or Kage turns out to be Dom's Rogue, I'm sure that will come out in subsequent books.

Great Book!!

Things start to get extremely exciting in this book as we continue with the saga. Dom fails his Latent competency test - partly because of the pressure to lie for Kempthorne and partly because of the events surrounding his life at the moment. Kempthorne steps up and agrees to "supervise" him which only serves to aggravate Dom even more.

This book begins to move things along in our story arc and we have Hollywood back in the mix. Kempthorne continues to evade all of Dom's questions, Hollywood is not all that he says he is and then, in an awful escalation....people die.

This was a GREAT book. Instead of losing steam, things continue to build. Confidences are strained and it looks like we are seeing different sides of a battle.

I loved, loved this book and am stopping right there because I have got to go and start the next book. :)

Exciting and twisted story

This series has kept me enthralled from the beginning. Excellent intrigue and wonderful narration. Moving on now to the last book of the series.

CHAPTER 21

I loved everything about book 2 especially chapter 21.. it was definitely worth the wait.

The main character is annoying!

I read the first book in the series, which was good but with glimpses of the main character over thinking things... In this one it's full blown annoying. Just can't listen to him whine any more....