Charming

Pax Arcana, Book 1

De: Elliott James

Narrado por: Roger Wayne

Duración: 10 h y 34 m

Resumen del Editor

John Charming isn't your average prince...

He comes from a line of Charmings - an illustrious family of dragon slayers, witch-finders and killers dating back to before the fall of Rome. Trained by a modern day version of the Knights Templar, monster hunters who have updated their methods from chain mail and crossbows to Kevlar and shotguns, John Charming was one of the best-until a curse made him one of the abominations the Knights were sworn to hunt.

That was a lifetime ago. Now John tends bar under an assumed name in rural Virginia and leads a peaceful, quiet life. That is, until a vampire and a blonde walked into his bar...

©2013 Elliott James LLC (P)2014 Tantor

You had me at "the prologue"

The way the author integrated myth and the present was amazing. The author did a very good job in portraying John, the main character, as a normal person with normal insecurities but had supernatural powers. John's personal thoughts made the story believable. Definitely going to buy the next book.

Entertaining!

This story was on the better end of urban fantasy, though it's not the best I've listened too (Dresden remains throned in that regard for me). if the rest are of this caliber though, it will definitely be up there.

Anyway, story aside, the narrator was pretty brilliant; the narration added to the story - taken together they're certainly worth the listen.

Worth the time and credit

Very enjoyable. I really liked John's "voice". It reminded me somewhat of Harry Dresden's (though the stories are not that similar). I listened to this mostly on audio but did read part of it on Kindle and enjoyed both versions equally. The narrator for the audio is excellent. I'd recommend this to fans of the Harry Dresden novels (because the tones are similar) and also to those who enjoy urban fantasy novels with tortured but honorable heroes with a sense of humor.

unique paranormal, but lousy narration

Where does Charming rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

I enjoyed the story very much. It has a unique take on paranormal tropes, mixing them with the fantasy world of fairy tales. The H is a 'Charming', and his avocation is slaying the monsters who are out of control. In this case, it's vampires who are a little too bloodthirsty for their own good. It an interesting and fun story, and I liked it.

The narration, not so much. The narration is choppy, with an artificial break at the end of a line of dialogue for the 'he said' or 'she mused' or 'they laughed'. It makes listening feel like you're riding in a car with a standard transmission, but the driver doesn't know how to shift yet. So you get a 'putt-putt-jerk' kind of cadence as you listen.

Great paranormal tale

Valkyries, werewolves and vampires, oh my!
Great action. Love the narrator. All of the characters had a different sound.

Read it first lessioning now

So I am completely caught up on this series which is awsome by the way. The writing for the series is really good. So buying this audiobook was a no brainer. That being said the narration for this book is great and does an amazing job of making all the characters come to life. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of urban fantasy and doesn't mind a lot of humor in their books.

Dresden Watch out, the Templars have come to town!

This book is Has been a wonderful read start to finish and only has room to further improve itself.

Charming truly captures the essence of urban fantasy in a ways I have only seen in Dresden and the Iron druid chronicles. If you consider you're self a fan of the genera you should definitely look into this novel.
Why? The characters are wonderfully entertaining, with an array of different religions, race's and even species. They keep the story fresh, fun, and full of changing perspective's.
I was extremely impressed with the variety of the creatures and monsters in this book. You get the typical things like Vampires, Lycanthropes, and zombies but then they make mentions from of things like Naga all the way to Croatian physics It was amazing and i cant wait to see more.

The action in this book was top notch. With more use I found of conventional weapons then magical means witch grounds a lot of the fighting in reality enough so you can really dive into the heat of the moment and not just expect some deus ex machina to save the day.
That being said Magic is one of the main focus's of this book and is done really well.
The romance however is done very well but feel's forced at times and like the plot is pushing characters together rather then letting them finding there way together.

The reader captures the essence of the main character.
I greatly look forward to the rest of this series and hope the rest makes its way to audio books.

Meh

I felt this book was just - meh. I never got sucked in and I’m not planning on listening to any more.

Captivating

While fantasy, it felt as if all was reality. Listened straight through for hours ...!

Light and entertaining

Just finished the fun, tongue in cheek "fairy tale " that blends old -fashioned princely/knightly heroism with "modern day" supernatural monster vigilantes . There were a few HA! moments of quick wit and humor that kept it interesting.

Yet, the detail into which the author depicts the fight scenes is just short of overboard. I think one can get the sense of the action without quite that much excruciating detail.
I would still recommend the tale and will probably consider getting the next in the series.