Smoke and Summons

(Numina, Book 1)

By: Charlie N. Holmberg

Narrated by: Scott Merriman, Lauren Ezzo

Length: 12 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's Summary

A captivating world of monsters and magic from the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Paper Magician Series.

As a human vessel for an ancient spirit, Sandis lives no ordinary life. At the command of her master, she can be transformed against her will into his weapon - a raging monster summoned to do his bidding. Unlike other vessels, Sandis can host extremely powerful spirits, but hosting such creatures can be fatal. To stay alive, she must run. And in a city fueled by smoke and corruption, she finds a surprising ally.

A cunning thief for hire, Rone owns a rare device that grants him immortality for one minute every day - a unique advantage that will come in handy in Sandis’s fight for freedom. But Sandis’s master knows how powerful she is. He’s determined to get her back, and he has the manpower to find her, wherever she runs.

Now, to outwit her pursuers, Sandis must put all her trust in Rone and his immortal device. For her master has summoned more than mere men to hunt her down....

©2019 Charlie N Holmberg LLC. (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

By the end of the book, I was just annoyed.

I honestly think that a great editor could have helped the author with some of the flaws in the book. There were times in the story where I thought I might start to like the main characters, but they just kept making stupid choices and then they were surprised at the consequences of their actions. Or worse ... they were surprised that someone evil did something evil. Why was the main character obsessed over her nonexistent relationship with a demon who possessed her to destroy everything around her? This just didn't work for me.
I know it is a YA book that I got for free but the ending irritated me, because it isn't just a cliffhanger, it almost negates (or makes worthless) the journey you have taken with the characters this far. Nothing is resolved in the first book, so I don't care enough to continue their adventure. Instead, I chose to never know what happens ... which bothers me because there was a lot of potential.

Didn't Find the Ending as Offensive as some

I expected some awful cliff-hanger that would leave everything up-ended and terribly frustrating after I read the reviews for this book, but I hate to say it - I didn't have that reaction to it. I'm a Holmberg fan and have read almost all of her other books. She totally lost me on Veins of Gold and it was one of the few books I have ever just not finished because I didn't care about what happened. So, all that being said, my expectations were super low. But I thought this is a great story. The characters, setting and plot are all such great fantasy and she brings it to life in a way that really lets me feel like a fly on the wall. I did feel like some strings get left untied but I also thought I got some resolution on certain things, with an understanding that there was more to come. Overall, I liked the characters, story, and narration from Audible (the performer did a great job)! If you like Holmberg's other books, give it a try. It's not as good as Paper Magician but definitely still a winner in my book.

Fun story with likeable characters.

Really enjoyed the narrators. I tend to prefer male voices, however I found that I loved Lauren Ezzo's tone and voice more than her male counterpart. So much so, that I felt she was the character. I also felt the story premise was intriguing even if the story ended as expected. The main characters were really loveable. The one thing that did annoy me was that I felt the villians felt too competent. Every single time the main characters moved around the city (they move a lot), the villians were right there. It seems unbelievable that they we're always discovered so quickly, and that the villians were that efficient with being on top of their every move in a massive city.

Story had potential

Liked the overall idea of the story. However I find characters that make illogical decisions frustrating. I also dislike angst that occurs simply because characters do not communicate.

This performance/story is so addicting!

I loved the narrators and the way they switched between her story and his story. Like a good book I didn't want to put my phone down to listen. I loved the whole experience!

Fantastic

loved this book. the two narrators were great and it was easy to follow. a much darker world (in my opinion) than that of the paper magician. i may end up liking this series even better then paper magician. strongly recommended title

Didn't like the story line, performance is so-so.

While I did like the premise, it was executed poorly. The writing itself was pretty good, but as the story progresses the plot twists are more and more convenient. Ultimately, I didn't like turkey of the main characters very well. As far as the performance, I wasn't impressed with the range on the voices, it was read well, but didn't sound believable.

recommended

she does a great job with her writing, very imaginative, my daughter loves her books

Alright story, LOVE the narrators

Something about the pacing and POV switching felt off halance to me, but what do I know? The narrator s, especially the woman, sold it for me. I will actively seek out her performances.

Lacks a strong female lead

What I’ve really enjoyed about Charlie Hamburg’s books in the past are the feisty, self sufficient, ingenious female characters. This one didn’t deliver for me. Except for to or three brief moments of gumption the lead a character spent most of the book going back and forth between waiting to be rescued by the male lead, naively hoping to be rescued by a family member she’s never met, and believing whatever her “owner” chooses to tell her. I found myself frustrated that Sandis wouldn’t just DO something for herself. Anything. I’m hoping that is coming in book 2 and 3.

Weak on characters

Since Holmberg's Paper Magician series was wonderful, I expected to really enjoy this trilogy. I think the plot was interesting enough, but I was deeply disappointed by characterisation. I'm especially disappointed that a female author wrote such a timid and needy female protaganist and then matched her to a male character who was possessive and overprotective without any indication of critical reflection or awareness of the fact that she was reproducing crude stereotypes. It was really distracting, and made it hard to really invest in the story as much as I wanted to. Hopefully her next works will provide more nuance. I didn't notice these issues in the paper/plastic magician world. But perhaps you wouldn't notice it when the context is the Victorian era. Then gender stereotypes seem more faithful to how far society had progressed at the time. But even considering that, I still think her characters there were much better.

beautiful story

this book is beautiful fantasic start to a new world to a new series it is a whirlwind beautiful written beautifully voice acted