Undercover Magic

Dragon's Gift: The Valkyrie, Book 1

By: Linsey Hall

Narrated by: Laurel Schroeder

Length: 6 hrs and 20 mins

Publisher's summary

In a world of suppressed magic, I’m an Unknown. Deadly power, little control. I’m only alive because I pay a blood sorcerer to keep me hidden. But when he comes to collect on the debt I can’t pay, one of his goons slams me with a deadly curse. Suddenly, I’m out of options and out of time.

When I’m given a rare chance to join the secretive Undercover Protectorate and train at their academy to become an investigator, I have a way to hunt the cure for the curse. They have resources I don’t. Easy, since I’m broke.

Seems like a good plan, right? At least, until they tell me Cade will be joining me on my hunt for the Blood Sorcerer. He's an actual Celtic war god - and the hottest guy I’ve ever seen. The catch? I can’t let him know that I’m an Unknown, or I’m out on my ass and deader than Hades.

©2017 Linsey Hall (P)2017 Linsey Hall

Change of scenery for Bree and Anna

This is a wonderful new book by Linsey Hall with Bree in the spotlight. There is a big change of scenery for the two sisters as they leave Death Valley behind to work with some awesome (and really hot) supernaturals.
Laurel Schroeder's performance is as usually superb, as she tackles different accents and characters as noone else.

a great listen for all fantasy loveres out there.

Great start to a spin off paranormal series

After really enjoying the first series in this world, I was so excited to learn about the other spin-offs. In fact, I kind of might have bought 10 books on Audible during their sale. Oops.

So I was thrilled that our lovely author gave away codes to download this new book in the fourth series in this world to her readers.

Bree is someone new to me, I don't really remember her much from Cass's books, and I haven't yet read the other 2 series. So I was expecting a bit more backstory, and I was kind of off-balance about her story and connection with my favorite Fire Souls.

But that's OK 'cause Bree's still a badass and amazing fighter. So is her sister, but the story isn't about Ana. The sisters are Unknowns and have to hide their powers. But they're in trouble with the super creepy Blood Sorcerer, who they owe too much for keeping them hidden, and since they can't pay, now they're on his hit list.

No problem though, just in time an amazing group called the Undercover Protectorate come in and "invite" Bree and her sister to join their group. And that's when we meet Cade. Swoony, strong, with a Scottish accent. Oh, and he's the God of War. Can't lose there. You can tell the attraction right away. But, we have a teacher-apprentice conflict of interest issue going on and I'm curious to see how they overcome it.

I do enjoy this world and this universe of Magicka and Shifters and all these additional creatures. While this book had too much of a first-book-in-a-series feel (versus being the 16th book in this world) I am looking forward to more with these characters and this storyline.

The Narrator ruins it.

This is the first time i've liked a story but felt the narration was ruining my experience. The cadence of the narration in this book is awful. She reads four or five words at a time no matter where in the sentence structure she happens to be and makes every phrase a captain Kirk like question whether it is or not. The tone of her voice is fine but she cant seem to string a whole thought or sentence together at once, there are always these disjointed short phrase's ... horrible . I tried speeding it up or slowing it down but it just makes it worse even more sing song and totally annoying. Usually after a couple of chapters I can ignore a narrators quirks and just submerge into the story....no luck so far.

Really good!

I listened to this with my teenager and we both really enjoyed this! Great writing and the narration was really well done. Story was interesting and kept us both interested all the way through. Looking forward to book 2!


I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review. The fact that I was gifted this book had no influence over my opinion of it

bad narration

The narrator is horrible...i had to stop listening . I will read this book

a great read

young adult, I will also have my 14 year old daughter listen and add her review when she is finished. it was right up my alley. I really love these kinds of books. it was very entertaining and enjoyable. the narration and writing were​ great. I can't wait for the next book!

Entertaining, Unique, and good narration

This was lots of fun! Loved the premise and all the action! There's zombies, skeletons coming alive, and booby trapped rooms to escape! Lots of awesomeness! I liked that the characters kick butt, and the story was interesting throughout the whole thing. There's a small pinch of romance, but it is limited, so I would've liked more of that. This fits into the YA category so far with the lack of romance. I'm really looking forward to seeing the story progress and seeing how the romance evolves (hopefully!!) There's lots of awesome magic usage too! The story starts out exciting with some goons coming to capture Bree and her sister, Ana. These 2 have been in hiding since they were little kids, but they don't really know from what. They both have trust issues, so when a group from the Undercover Protectorate asks them to join the team; they aren't too sure about that. Among them is sexy Kade, who has some incredible abilities of his own. Bree and Kade grow closer, but there's some obstacles in the way. Bree and the group need to find the bad guy before it's too late! So, the adventure begins!! I listened to the audio version of this book, and the narrator did a really good job. I liked the listening experience, and I'm excited to read the next in the series. I actually went to get the next one in audio since I had a credit, but I saw that all the books Linsey Hall's other series were grouped in a boxset, so I picked that up instead!

Strong Performance, but nothing new here...

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

Everything about this is competently done. Strong voice acting, well written in the technical sense, moves along at a decent clip-- but there isn't anything new or interestingly put together in the world-build that grabbed me, or made me want to continue with the series. Strong, sassy, mistrustful girl (who seems younger than she is supposed to be) with mysterious, uncontrolled magic meets broody, mysterious dude with an accent. They must work together because she has no other options-- oh and she is, of course, attracted to him. We've been down this road before....

What three words best describe Laurel Schroeder’s performance?

Laurel's work is evenly paced, clear, and understandable. She does solid accent work, and the changes between characters, both male and female, were consistent and smooth.

Any additional comments?

I received a free copy of this audiobook at my request, and have written this review voluntarily.

An amazing read!

Damn! The author really knows how to write a page-turner! Like seriously, wow, just wow. So freaking incredible. Such an engaging, interesting and entertaining read!

Loved listening to every moment of this audio - so excellent. Good job to the narrator!

It was decent

Any additional comments?

I did enjoy this audiobook and I liked the way the narrator read the story.

Is this one I would read again? Probably not but I might continue the series because the story was entertaining enough.

I received a review copy at my request and voluntarily reviewed.