The Syndicate

Timewaves, Book 1

De: Sophie Davis

Narrado por: Andrea Harbin

In a future where time travel has been outlawed, a black market exists for anyone with the money, connections, and nerve to request items from days past. As a Runner for one of the underground syndicates that now controls the timewaves, Stassi 2446-89 has seen it all: the fall of Rome, the rise of Hitler, the end of democracy, the establishment of time tourism, and the devastating consequences of it. Her job is to seamlessly slip through the past, in search of items of value to the syndicate's clientele.

Stassi's next assignment takes her to Paris in the 1920s in search of a lost manuscript by one of the 20th century's greatest writers. She and her partner, Gaige, are swept up in the City of Light during the height of fashion and culture - as alluring a locale as they've ever visited. But a seedier side of life lurks beneath the glamorous facade, and the pair quickly learns this run is more dangerous than any of their previous missions.

Because history isn't playing out as it should be - a first for the syndicate. When the stakes are raised and it becomes a matter of life or death, Stassi and Gaige must ultimately decide how far they're willing to go to ensure the future as they know it.

©2016- Sophie Davis Books (P)2017 Sophie Davis

Very interesting story, not so great narration

I’m going to start off with a review of the story, because overall, I really did enjoy it quite a bit. It starts off at the end of a mission for Stassi and Gaige, and we get a feel for how they work as a team. Quickly moving into the next mission, things seem to slow down a bit, and we get a ton of detail of how the syndicate and the missions work, and it does tend to drag the story a bit. However, as the mysteries unfold, it sucks you in more and more.

There are three main plots circling each other in this book. The main being the mission to 1925 Paris to obtain a manuscript that has gone missing, and someone wealthy would like to get their hands on. It’s a lengthier mission than most, possibly lasting up to six weeks, and involves getting deeply embedded into the elite social circles of 1920s Paris, including with Ernest Hemingway and his wife. The second mystery that is tied in with this, is Stassi’s desire to learn more about her birth parents, since she was essentially orphaned at age 4, but a mysterious locket, and a picture that ties it to Paris in this time period, makes her want to pursue any possibly leads for more information. And the third main mystery revolves around a mysterious, seemingly undocumented serial killer terrorizing the area, who then turns his sights and obsessions onto Stassi. The three stories weave around each other nicely. We even get a sweet secondary romantic storyline that proves to be more than you think by the end. Definitely an interesting world, and very intriguing, the book itself really is quite good.

That said, the narration just isn’t up to par here. The narrator herself has a very clipped and robotic intonation, most of the time. There are actually times where she actually sounds natural, usually in spurts of dialogue here and there, but overall, it is very slow, and very robotic. I had the speed ratcheted up to 1.3x in order to get it to a pace that would allow me to continue to listen to the story that I was enjoying without being majorly distracted. She also mispronounced a number of things, including some historically important ones. Those were definitely a distraction. The audio quality here is also inconsistent. The volume and quality fluctuated quite a bit throughout the book, once again, causing a level of distraction to the story.

I’m not dinging the overall score of the review for the narration, but I do think this particular book in the series might be better if just read in ebook, or other written, form. The prequel was a different narrator, and it was good, and I see that the subsequent books in this series utilise a different narrator, so I’m hopeful that many of these issues will be resolved. I enjoyed the story, and I’m looking forward to the continuation of the series!

Good book

Good time travel story with an interesting plot and well written, characters. I can't wait to see what happens next.

Time travel gold

I love time travel books. This one had a big mystery entwined in it. Stassi goes back in time to retrieve a book but there’s a murderer getting in her way. Stassi is so clever and witty and there’s a sweet love story or two in the story. The narrator was not my favorite as she has a weird cadence but she was great at various character voices! There was a nice cliffhanger at the end... can’t wait to hear book 2!

Really good story - Audio quality needs work

Any additional comments?

An interesting, entertaining and enjoyable time travel murder mystery thriller. Unfortunately the audio errors take away from the overall enjoyment. It's hard to be completely pulled into a story when the audio quality/errors keep pulling you out.

The story itself is well written, creative, visually descriptive and very detailed. The possibilities for interesting new adventures are endless with the time travel aspect in the series. I really enjoyed the fact that this story stuck to one time period instead of skipping around.

While the story is full of mystery and intrigue with a bit of romance, the suspense builds very slowly as the story unfolds. The story does keep you guessing with plenty of twists. There are several different story-lines going on at the same time which should keep the story constantly moving forward but there were times especially in the beginning it felt like the story wasn't moving at all.

Great cast of well rounded and interesting characters. Gaige and Stassi are friends who act like brother and sister. Loved the humor, banter and true friendship between them. Really like that they are not love interests for each other. They are true platonic friends who trust and look out for each other on or off a mission. That could possibly change in the future but I hope not.

The Syndicate is a black market business specializing in retrieving any item from any time period. As long as someone can afford the price the syndicate will retrieve an item from it's last know whereabouts. Their job is to achieve their objective, retrieve the item and not affect the timeline in anyway. It can be a very dangerous job. Especially when things don't always go as planned. Gage and Stassi's latest mission isn't turning out as planned. Caught up in the middle of a murder investigation. Gage becomes the prime suspect. How far are they willing to go to finish their mission and insure the current timeline remains intact.

Andrea Harbin does the narration for this story. This is the first time I have heard her narrate a book. While there are several issues I will address below, her narration overall was very enjoyable. She has a pleasant voice. Easy to listen to for long periods of time. Clearly spoken with a nice even pace. Some really good character voices. There are times she needs to put a little more "life" into her narration. The way she narrates is very "soothing" which limits the amount of time you want to spend listening in one sitting. With just a few changes she could be a really great narrator. I would listen to her narrate other audiobooks.

Issues - The quality of the audio is inconsistent and changes throughout the story. There are many times it sounds "hollow". The introduction of each new chapter is at a different volume level. Some of the errors in the audio quality I was able to write down at the time were static in background of Chapter 7. Chapter 19 at little over 7 minutes in something is missing (a line)? in the narration the conversation changes abruptly. Chapter 20 repeated line close to the end. Chapter 23 repeated line. Several more times throughout the book words were repeated I couldn't always write them down.

Before an audio is released it should be checked. It is a huge disappointment when there are this many errors in a book. I would return the book based on this many errors.

I was voluntarily provided this free review copy audiobook by the author, narrator or publisher.

Time Travel Mystery

I absolutely love Time travel novels and this is no exception . I have always wanted to go to Paris and this made me even more anxious to . The level of descriptions to detail is amazing . I didn't want it to end even after 20 hours . The narration was so so . Sometimes I felt it and sometimes I just didn't . I look forward to more from this author .