Black Candle

The Sullivan Gray Series, Book 1

By: H.P. Bayne

Narrated by: John Downey

Length: 5 hrs and 55 mins

Publisher's summary

A missing teen. The ghost of a murdered woman. And one man racing against time to save them both.

The ability to see the ghosts of homicide victims has always been more burden than gift and, for 20-year-old Sullivan, it's never been heavier.

As the storm of the century pummels the city, he finds himself sucked into a mystery, struggling to decipher clues from a ghost intent on saving a missing teenage girl.

His foster family has had his back since childhood, his older brother Dez acting as both wing man and protector. But as he draws nearer to answers, Sullivan finds himself pulled further from his family and increasingly on his own. With time running out, Sullivan races to fulfill the ghost's desperate quest, a path that will take him into a world of witchcraft, dark secrets, and murder.

One wrong step will leave him a ghost himself.

The Sullivan Gray Series provides mystery and suspense with a ghostly edge, and the brother dynamic of shows like Supernatural. Pick up your copy today.

©2018 Bayne Independent Publishing (P)2019 Bayne Independent Publishing

Pretty good

Slow to start, but once it got going pretty good. We almost quite listening after the first couple of chapters, but hung in to the end.

Great story

Loved the characters, the intrigue, and the storyline. Good writing! Narration was excellent, too. Highly recommend!

Great Potential!

Good story. Great potential. Wrong narrator. Will give the rest of the series a try.

loved it

I loved it. can't wait to start the next book to see what will happen

So so

I really wanted to like this book. I can’t say what bothered me most about the book. It just didn’t grab my interest. I did listen to the entire book but it just wasn’t for me.

A biblical rainstorm and a mystery

A truly entertaining mystery. Sullivan, Sully to his foster brother, is a twenty-year-old bartender who can see ghosts. It is not just any ghosts. It is ghosts who have died violently and want Sully’s help. He has learned to live with his gift with the assistance of his brother Dez as his ghost protector. Dez does not like ghost but he loves his brother and would do anything for him. Dez’s fierce protection for Sully grew from the grief and sadness that he let someone else down.

Experiencing one of the town’s most biblical rainstorms in Kimotan Rapids, Sully, Dez and friends must track a killer of two women and a possible teen. It is not like the ghosts understand that it is suicide to be out in the rain or that Sully’s mode of transportation is the bus. While Sully cannot hear ghosts, the importance of getting the mystery solved is communicated when a ghost strangles him.

The victims are from the often overlook and must abused population; the drug addicts, prostitutes and runaways. Sully, who becomes disenchanted and feels disrespected by his older brother, goes off to solve the mystery on his own. He is not only in the worst part of town; he has no weapons to defend himself and refuses to call his brother.
There are many red herrings the author throws into the story. I was not able to anticipate who was the killer. I read the book in a single sitting.

I love the relationship with the brothers and the family. Sully was fostered with the Braddocks at age seven. Yet, he still feels overwhelm when his dad refers to him as his son. Then there is the devotion that Sully feels to Dez that he risked his life to protect his brother’s.

This is a series that I will be following.

This was such a treat!

This is a fantastic book: well-written, with full-fledged characters, and a great plot. Sully and his family are amazing characters, as a matter of fact, all of them are. The dialogues are fluid, the story tense and gripping, and the mystery... I was jumping from one suspect to the next for almost the whole book!

And the permanent rain... that rain is yet another character in the story, and it sets the mood seamlessly.

Believe me, once you begin this series, you won't be able to stop.

And John Downey does superb work here. His narration is gorgeous, his intonations subtle and reflecting perfectly the emotions under each of the words. It seems that I have now not only a favourite writer but also a new favourite narrator. Ain't am a lucky girl?

Different

I really enjoyed the completely different storyline that I couldn't predict the ending of. I was very invested in the book and the characters.

Loved it!

This was SUCH a great book! The story is sooo good and I loved the narration. I actually had goosebumps listening to the story. It’s suspenseful, but has some lighthearted humor between Sully and Dez to break up the tension. The narrator does a great job distinguishing voices so I could easily tell who was talking, and he really brought out the mood of the book. Definitely recommend this audiobook and hoping for a continuation of this story!

Nope

This was a difficult listen. The story was awful, the writing was awful and the performance was horrible. I kept waiting for it to get better. Glad it is behind me.