Spirited

A Reverse Harem Fantasy Romance (The Academy of Spirits and Shadows)

By: C.M. Stunich

Narrated by: Kylie Stewart, Eric Rolon

Brynn of Haversey is a spirit whisperer - a person blessed with the ability to see and speak to the dead. In the country of Amerin, she's one of a select few with magical gifts known as whisperers. Every year, the Royal College accepts a small number of new students, all magically inclined, all whisperers. Competition is brutal and the classes, nearly impossible to pass for a half-breed angel with two left feet and a massive pair of black feathered wings. Oh, and especially if she brings her six ghostly boyfriends with her to the academy (including the recently deceased crown prince, a master thief hanged for his crimes, and a former student of the Royal College). What kind of spirit whisperer is Brynn of Haversey if she can't exorcise her own soulmates?

But Brynn isn't attending the most prestigious academy in the world to become a better exorcist - she's searching for a way to bring her lovers back to life....

Spirited is a full-length reverse harem romance with a (slightly) clumsy but still kick-butt angel heroine and her six boyfriends who just happen to be ghosts. This book includes foul language, violence, and sexual situations.

©2018 C.M. Stunich (P)2019 C.M. Stunich

Spectacular

Loved it very much. The voices and writing style was truly dynamic. a must read

3.5 Stars

I had a love hate relationship with this book.

All of the cursing without using curse words was driving me bat-sh*t (censored so my review will be allowed) crazy. It was so excessive and redundant. It made me want to DNF at times but I loved everything else so I kept with it. The main character, Brynn, is half angel and anytime she uses a curse word, she would lose a feather from her wings. The feathers grow back but it is still something she wants to avoid. And she explained all this, ad nauseam. Sometimes words that aren't curse words, such as jerk, would also cause her to lose a feather. Really any word that has a negative connotation to it. So here is my biggest issue with that, swapping out a regular curse word for a non traditional curse word is still using a word or phrase with a negative connotation. It is still intentional cursing just with different words. So if I were to say, in anger, "stapler you, you paper clipping, highlighter" I am still meaning something negative, am I not? Feathers should still be lost. And rather than making up alternative curse words, maybe just avoiding them altogether would have been a safer bet for keeping all the feathers intact. Then to make matters worse, there were times where she said something like a**hole but no feather was lost. It just didn't add up.
Here are some examples from the book:
-“Go flub yourself,” I growled at a thick tangle of blackberry that had gotten wrapped around my ankle. “You bleeding blatherer.”
-Hell's bells—since Hell was an actual place it didn't count as a curse word so no lost feathers for me—
-“Flub mice,” she said, only she didn't actually say flub but I wouldn't lose a feather even thinking about the F-word that famously rhymes with duck.
-“Flub, I told you to run.” He also didn't exactly say flub, but I was getting to the point where my mind just sort of dubbed that word into place of a lot of others.
-...powers—a real blitz (so much less sexist than the alternative word, that infamous witch with a 'B')
-he really must have been a serious bad-bum (badass counts as cursing, okay?)
-“Come look and then, if you still think I'm full of poop”—Elijah maybe didn't exactly say poop there but I dubbed the word in my head automatically—
- “Told you,” the bum-hole (or asshole as Jas might say) said as he leaned one muscular shoulder against the crumbling edge of a marble column.
-“You're a … mother flubbing bleeding blatherer,” Brynn growled out under her breath,
-See? Any word with an extremely negative connotation—whoever used jerk in a positive light?—counted against my feathers. It didn't have to be a 'curse word' per se.
-“Holy ship,” she said, but well, you get the picture now right? She didn't actually say ship. Change that P out for a T and then…

All of that aside, I really liked the characters and I liked the story. I think that a lot of creativity went into this book and I loved watching everything unfold. I liked that we got to know each of the harem and they all had unique personalities and skills. Each man was distinguishable based on his own merits. And I loved the love story being created. The relationship Brynn has with Air is my favorite. Their bond is something rare and beautiful. I also liked the strong friendship that Brynn has with her handler, Jas.

I didn't want to put this down. I finished it the same day. Outside of the annoying redundant explanations of her difficulties with cursing, this book is captivating. I was totally enthralled.

The cliffhanger though, holy crap is it a big one!!! I can't wait to continue reading to the next book to find out what happens next. I am a little concerned that I haven't been able to find a release date for book 3 yet. If book 2 is anything like book 1, I will need book 3 as soon as possible.

Audible: This audible was a bit different than what I am used to. There was a male narrator and a female narrator. Anytime there was direct dialogue from a male character during one of Brynn's chapters, the male narrator would speak the dialogue. It caught me off guard and took me a minute to get used to it, but I did and I enjoyed it. Also, the male narrator acted as well as read his parts, so like if the character laughed, he would laugh. Not a bad thing, just a bit different from what I usually listen to. I liked both narrators and their voices. They were clear and easy to understand and determine who was speaking at the time. The one critique I do have is that some of the pronunciations were different between the narrators and I would have preferred that they compared notes or something ahead of time when it came to something as important as, Airmienan, a very important character's name. All in all, I enjoyed this as an audiobook and I recommend it.

Thoroughly enjoyed

Really enjoyed the book! Very sad that it ended in such a cliffhanger and book #2 no where in sight :(

Awesome book

As always, Really loved the book
Cannot wait for the next one!
The voices are nice to listen to

Impressive number of diff. voices from narrators!

I really loved this audiobook version of Spirited by CM Stunich! I think its my favorite of hers thus far, and thats saying something haha. I have heard these narrators before, even just on one of CM’s other series, and they improved on this one and I didnt want it to end. I am dying for book 2 to be on audio, but I will wait patiently....mostly 😉😅❤️

About the story first off....I will be honest that this book took me a little bit to get sucked into. Not sure why, but even with the action packed beginning, it wasn’t until about 1/3 of the way through the story that I had a hard time putting the book/audiobook down. I really am falling for all these different characters and love the concept of ghosts and spirit whisperers. I already have read book 2 but I am rereading it now because of how amazing this audiobook was. So Brynn keeps getting more potential loves, more of them become ghosts unfortunately, and there is a lot of scheming going on that the group is unaware of. Everyone is going to have to come together to get the ingredients and to figure out how to make this spell work. I have to say I really fell for all the guys, except Trubble, Dire, and Spicer since they are more new, even though Trubble is totally BA and Dire’s fight and feelings at the end of the book pulled at all my heartstrings. I know I will love them even more after book 2 and really really hope book 3 happens this year. I need to know how the HEA happens!!!

For the narration, like I said before, Kylie and Eric were on point. I will say something that could be improved upon that made me sometimes teeter between and 4 and a 5 stars were the pronunciations of some of the words. Like Air’s real name, the land they were living in, etc. Kylie would say it one way, then Eric would say it a different way. There were times Eric changed his pronunciation in the same chapter of a certain word haha. Things that could be found before production and it would have been perfect. I will definitely listen to any book these 2 narrators do. I couldn’t believe how awesome Eric made the different guy voices and you could tell who was who right away, especially Trubble and Talon. Amazon job!!

Highly recommend this audiobook! Love, Love, Love 😍😍😍. My one concern is finally getting book 3 released. I am totally good with waiting because CM is brilliant and writes amazing stories. I just want book 2 on audio like NOW (haha I know, super greedy over here) and hope and cross my fingers we get the ending this year for the series. I NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS hahaha.

Such a good story!

The narrators did were amazing and I loved the duet style. This is such an underrated story of CM Stunich! It’s got great world building and creativity!

Hello, Book 2 where are you?!?!?!

It's been years and still no book 2. I absolutely HATE when they do a only part of a series in Audio and then just quit. Who the hell does that? Thanks for leaving me hanging.

I waited too long to listen to this one!

Ok, so let me start off by saying I was not impressed with the first five minutes of listening and in fact had to READ the actual book's first few chapters (free on Kindle Unlimited) before I was able to listen to the FMC for some reason, but after I got my own impression of her in my head, the story took off for me! Also, I absolutely love Eric Rolan and he made the listen worth it for me as well, I have intentionally been holding off on reading book 2 because I want to hear the audio version now. So, if your reading reviews and wondering "Can I listen to almost 9 hours of this?" like I was, you should go for it! Ok, now for the story...

The character initially seems kind of clumsy, fumbling, and childish but it quickly becomes endearing as she grows into herself and her abilities. No character is perfect, and it is annoying when they are so her little insecurities and doubts make her more awesome in my mind. Her men are hilarious, sexy, and entertaining! The characters and relationships build naturally and I really enjoyed the pacing. I would say it's a fast burn/build reverse harem that reminds me of the Curse of the Gods series, so if you enjoyed that you are definitely going to love this! Awesome story, definitely worth a credit and I will be listening as quickly as they are released!

where is part 2

i want to see if she is going to see if see is going to do the spell right and will she take all 6 as her husband's

Holy crap

well that was one hell of a cliffhanger *spolier* go and kill off multiple main characters and boom... the end. I gotta buy the next book just for some closure.