Wasting

Book of Maladies Series, Book 1

By: D.K. Holmberg

Narrated by: Traci Odom

Fate brings them together. Their magic will bind them.

In the city of Verdholm, canals separate the highborns in the center sections of the city from the lowborns along the outer sections. The city is isolated, surrounded by a deadly swamp and steam fields which should protect the people of the city from the dangerous outside world. Until it doesn't.

For Sam, an orphaned thief who wants only to protect her brother, protection means stealing enough so she can one day buy her way into a better section. She's a skilled thief, and when she's offered a job that can change everything for her, what choice does she have but to take it?

Alec is an apothecary who longed to join the prestigious university and become a physicker, but they rarely accept students from the merchant class, and he's now too old to enroll. The surprising discovery of strange magic can change his fortunes, but only if he can fully understand it.

When the natural protection of the city fails, and her brother is thrown into danger, Sam must become more than a thief to save him, but she can't do so by herself. Somehow, she and Alec are linked through an ancient magic and together they might be the only ones able to stop an attack that threatens to disrupt the balance within the city and bring the dangers of the outside world to them.

©2017 D.K. Holmberg (P)2018 Tantor

Well done

D.K. Holmberg is an interesting author. Some don't like him because they get hung up on grammatical idiosyncrasies and fail to just enjoy the story. I don't think Holmberg takes the time or spends the money for precision in his writing like some authors do; however, what he has is a massive amount of material to read and listen to. If you like him, you will have hundreds of hours of listening material.

I found myself quick immersed and captured by this story. I like the characters. There is an interesting magical system. I don't agree with the other review that it was two steps forward, and three steps back. but everyone has their own opinions. I am really glad that Homberg is writing different types of stories. I like variety and not all authors seem to be able to do that. So far I have listened to three of his series and enjoyed all of them

Two Steps Forward, Three Steps Back

I liked the premise, i liked the characters, i even liked some of the mystery and such. The organization of how the story progressed felt like an utter waste of time. Had i not liked the aforementioned and the narrator's performance as much as i did, this would have gotten a 1star rating. My review title says it all. The story moves forward then back peddles, forward and back over and over again. Heck, i felt tired imagining how many times in the span of a day or two Sam went back and forth from the Highborn neighborhoods to hers and back and again... If this was a film, i'd say we would need to cut about 20 mins of superfluous traveling back & forth, another 15 of re-hashing information, and possibly add more meat to the B & C plots to keep things more coherent.