Good fun.

An enjoyable romp. I liked the premise and the device of letters to frame the plot. Only jarring item was the Americanisms in a book narrated by a Briton and set in Britain. What British person ever "sipped a beverage"?! Other than that it was light and well paced.

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Glad it's Finished

Some remarkably imaginative chapters but they took me into situations I didn't like. Not as bad as swimming in phlegm or eating someone else's but going that way and can be blamed for this analogy.

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Loved most of the book

loved most of the story, but the end felt like it almost came out of nowhere.

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great !

It was a great story and narrated really well. i would listen again and hope there is a sequel.

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Great plot, painful dialogue

Really inventive story, well narrated. but the dialogue is pretty trite, especially when it's aiming to be funny.

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Great fun listening

A secret British organisation for people with super powers and a girl trying to figure out who wiped her memory while keeping the office running smoothly. A fun story with more than a touch of British humour.

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A good tale, but disappointing in places

Any additional comments?

Some reviews make out that the underlying concept of this book ventures into previously unknown territory, which is not correct - the most obvious comparison being Ben Aaronovitch's "Rivers of London series". That said, the concept is sufficiently different that there can be no accusations of copycatting.

Overall, I enjoyed listening to this book and will buy the next in the series if there are any (which I hope that there are). The reading was done well.I liked the overall plot concept and the back-story and the device of the heroine's predecessor writing her informative letters worked well.

My major criticisms are thus: First, there several what I thought to be continuity errors, which I found irritating. For example, the heroine works for a super-secret, illuminati-esque organisation that has managed to stay secret for centuries, but one character almost immediately manages to track her down in about 20 minutes. Actually, the whole plotline involving that character had me shouting at the car speakers at one point because it just seemed so unlikely (but don't let that worry you too much, it's still a good story).

Second, some of the super-natural elements of the story are just a bit silly. The main ones work ok, but some of the people or events referred to in passing are just thrown in without any real thought appearing to have been given to whether they contribute towards a believable universe.

One of the secrets of great fantasy is that although the author can invent the rules, there must be rules and the story must stick to them. An attitude of "it's my world so I can do what I like" doesn't really work. This can be a particular problem, as JK Rowling discovered, if the author is hoping to produce a series, where throw-away gimmicks in early books can come back to bite the author on the bottom in the future.

Also, the limits of the heroine's own abilities seem to ebb and flow like an unpredictable tide, which is slightly distracting.

Third, the author makes a little bit too much use of "deus ex machina". If the heroine finds herself imperilled by a giant fire-breathing moth (which she doesn't) then the next minion that comes along would just happen to have the ability to spit asbestos mothballs, etc. Remember the old James Bond films, where you just knew that every gadget given to him by Q was going to be exactly the right tool to get him out of just one sticky situation, just once? A bit like that, but in reverse.

In part, I get the feeling that the author has not quite decided upon his target audience. Some of the little things that bugged me would not really matter if the book is aimed mostly at children (who are less sophisticated or nit-picky, dependent upon your viewpoint, than I am in my 40s) but some of the concepts hinted at are quite adult.

In summary, I enjoyed the book, I will follow the series and recommend it to others - but I hope the author settles down to give a bit more attention to his world-building in the future.

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17 people found this helpful

Brilliant!!

I would 100% recommend this book, to anyone! It is well plotted and very gripping. Listening to it on my commute to and from work made it very difficult to go into the office and very eager to leave in the evening. There are alot of intricate threads that leave you wondering how it will all fit together in the end and everything is finished off very nicely. All of the characters are given interesting backstories without it seeming like a dry lecture and the memory loss makes a fabulous plot device for introducing us into this world. It is a good length and so you really get your moneys worth too. The narrator was a little annoying at first as some of the voices didn't seem quite how you would imagine them but after the first couple of chapters you are so into the story it doesn't even cross your mind.

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3 people found this helpful

loved it!

Kingsman meets X-men with a touch of Memento! it's really nice to hear a modern 'powers' fantasy story that really works! the world building is excellent, not too complicated but just complex enough to keep you interested.
the characters are great, especially the villains, and the benefit of the narrator being excellent really helps.
I'll admit her Belgian accents sometimes merged, but over all I enjoyed her interpretation.
the story is definitely not concluded within the first book so I look forward to the next one!

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So frustrating

This book has the potential to be a really good book. The story was familiar, it's been done a hundred times but that's standard if you real a lot in this genre. It's easy reading. It was entertaining and enough for me to contemplate buying the next in the series. The narrator does an amazing job, some of the accents are cheesy but endearing with it. What let it down was the authors apparent lack of imagination when describing the physical appearance of some of the characters. He doesn't seem to be able to move beyond "this character is fat" "this character is a "midget"". Not only does some of this language belong in the 1920's, he spends a painful amount of time and repitition pression home that certain characters are overweight. No similar efforts went into describing how slim someone was, or how tall they were. It came across in a pretty childish way to be honest and is making me think twice about the second book.

Apart from that one thing I would recommend it as worth a read.

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