The Enchantment Emporium

I've enjoyed Tanya Huff's work for years, and as usual, this was a fun urban fantasy story with quirky characters that frequently made me laugh out loud.

There are two big objections I saw in the other reviews that made me hesitant to buy that I wanted to respond to:

1.) The narrator: I'm sorry to agree, but I really wish there were another reader. There are some things she does wonderfully. She voices the Aunties beautifully, but she's uneven. Many other aspects of the pacing & narration were just flat, leaving me a bit confused as to what was going on. Several times something big had happened & I had no clue & had to back up a bit because there were absolutely no vocal cues.

That said, it wasn't enough to stop my enjoyment of the book, but enough to bug me from time to time.

2.) The Gale Family relations/incest: This gave me pause before buying, and I was leery going in, but in the context of the story it makes sense & isn't actually disturbing. (And believe me, I get wigged pretty easily by the topic - it's hard to read the word incest without an assumption of sexual assault and THAT is not my idea of fun reading.)

The Gale family is different. Alien. (Not as in they landed from outer space, but for all I know...) Not entirely human, with different rules and codes governing their behaviour that strikes me as reminiscent of some kind of wolf pack or minor fey court. If you're familiar with Tanya Huff's other work, then you can rest assured that the incest theme isn't like those in Fifth Quarter, in which it did thoroughly skeeve me out & kept me from enjoying the story. If it was a purely human family, it might've bothered me more, but the way their family is run reminds me a fair bit of royal dynasties - cousins marrying cousins to keep the blood pure. Only with inhuman pheromones & different standards. Really different standards.

Which is to say that if you're usually squeamish about such things, you don't need to let the other reviewer put you off.

Tanya Huff greatly expands the concept of Maiden, Mother, and Crone, to say nothing of seventh sons, horned gods and very intelligent dragons Also the next time I go to a second hand store I will be very careful where I put my hands. In this emporium enchantment is to be taken literally.

I will buy and listen to any book with Tanya Huff's name, and I am so gland I chose this one.

I love this book and have read it many, many times. I purchased the audiobook so I could listen to it on a roadtrip, but the narrator is just horrible. For example, there are several occasions where the narrator reverses the voices in a conversation, most memorably in a conversation between Allie and David near the end of the book. As it is written, it's perfectly clear. As it is recorded, it makes no sense at all. Odd words are emphasized in many, probably most, of the sentences in the book. Pauses are inserted where there's no cause for them. This is honestly the worst narrator I've ever heard. For this book, buy the hard copy.

I'll say right out that I loved the story. Though previous reviewers have been negative about the essentially manipulative and incestuous nature of the Gale family, it should be noted from the start that the family is set up as being Not Human. They are presented as having their own internally-consistent behavioural code. The reader (listener) is left to make up his or her own mind about it. I don't think I'd ever want to deal with them in real life, but reading from a safe distance is really fun. The story is engaging urban fantasy with a great sense of humour.

Unfortunately, the narrator, through no real fault of her own, kind of makes it impossible for me to listen. Until I'd got about halfway through, I couldn't put my finger on what was irritating me, and it wouldn't really have mattered if the book were set in the US or had been written by an American - but that's really it. The narrator speaks American. The pronunciation of certain words was consistently off - the name "Graham" is in the States pronounced "Gram", and by most Canadians as "GREH-am", for example. In the name "Calgary", the second syllable is usually only barely skipped over, and "Cal-guh-ry", as in this narration, is a highly unusual pronunciation.

These, I could live with. But the EMPHASIS -onthewrongwords- DROVE -meinsane. Maybe someone else wouldn't have noticed, but the narrator CONSTANTLY stressed the wrong words in a phrase - likely only "wrong" from a Canadian standpoint, but hell, the book is Canadian.

I don't really blame the narrator. If I (a born-and-raised Canuck) didn't realise it until halfway through the book, how could she? Otherwise, her narration is really good. She differentiates the characters' respective voices in really interesting and novel ways, and her diction is clear and precise. This is just a warning to the other Canucks out there - if that's likely to annoy you like it does me, you might want to give this one a miss.

If it won't, dig in!

I really enjoy this urban fantasy and have read the book more than once. While the story is about a very different family that happens to have unconventional sexual mores, it is not at all explicit. The narrator did accents fairly well, but read the book rather than narrating it. Her intonation was often flat and she emphasized the wrong words, often making it harder to understand the meaning. She also mispronounced a few words, which I would have forgiven if she had actually done more than a flat reading of the story. Towards the end she even mixed up the male and female voices for half of a conversation. A couple of times her accents carried over into the next person talking. While I love the story, the narration was a big disappointment.

I thoroughly enjoyed the story, although I found some of it a bit uncomfortable (the relationships between everyone - although, maybe if you go with the theory that the Gales aren't human, it works a bit better.) Nothing really complicated or twisty about the plot, but enjoyable nonetheless.

I think that this book was average. I was a little creeped out by so many cousins "hooking up." If it wasn't for that I would give it a good. Thankfully, these scenes are not graphic and so I could just think "ick" and go on. The book had funny parts. Nice Joss Whedon and Jim Butcher references. I would read another title by this author. The narrator is also just ok. Her voices were not distinct. So, I would give it a mediocre rating all the way around. But, it was fairly light and worth the credit.

I just saw that Tanya Huff's second book for the Emporium series is coming out in November. I am so excited. I love Huff's characters and her style of writing. She writes a story about the Fey in modern life and makes it very original and fascinating.

This is more a "romance" flavored book. I like urban fantasy but can't abide Paranormal romance. I probably set the "romance bar" lower than some.

Probably not. I've tried a few.

Okay. young. girlish.

Most of them I think. Really the ones where our protagonist waxed poetic about males she meets...seemingly any male she meets.

Skip this one if you're looking for Urban Fantasy not PNR.

The Enchantment Emporium was my first introduction to Tanya Huff, and it was a great one! I love the setup of the Gale family: their mysterious magic and rituals, their seeming obsession over pies. This is one of those books that manages to strike the delicate balance between the absurd and the serious, between the characters' magic and their lives. On the one hand, many of the sections are laugh-out-loud funny, surprising us with clever turns of phrase and amusing characters and situations, while on the other hand, we feel the characters' heartbreak and longings as if they were our own. The Gale family is the perfect example of a large, over-bearing, supportive family: run by the powerful and spirited Aunties, it's the sort of family that might drive its members crazy, but will be there for them no matter what.

Teri Clark Linden's narration sparkles through the text. This is a book I've never seen in print form, and I can't imagine it any other way. To me, Linden's version of Alysha, Charlie, and the rest will always be the real thing.

I should have kept track of the number of strange looks I attracted as I listened to this story and this performance and laughed out loud while walking or cleaning with earbuds in. I'm sure the count would have gotten pretty high.