The Black Wolves of Boston

By: Wen Spencer

Narrated by: Ian Alan Carlsen, Corey Gagne, J. Paul Guimont, Jennywren Walker

From the Romantic Times Sapphire award-winning author of the internationally best-selling Elfhome series.

Rebuild a life, save a city

Silas Decker had his world destroyed when he was attacked by vampires outside of New Amsterdam. He has rebuilt his life a dozen times in the last 300 years - each time less and less successfully. Now he lives alone, buried under a hoarding habit, struggling to find some reason to wake up with the setting of the sun.

Eloise is a Virtue, pledged to hunting evil. What she doesn't know is how to live alone in a city full of strangers who know nothing about monsters.

Seth is the 16-year old Prince of Boston, ward of the Wolf King. Now he is left in a city that desperately needs his protection with enemies gathering all around.

Joshua believes he is a normal, college-bound high school senior. His life is shattered when he wakes up in a field, covered with blood, and the prom committee scattered in pieces about him like broken dolls.

These four must now come together to unravel a plot by Wickers, witches who gain power from human sacrifices and have the power to turn any human into their puppet. Four people who lost everything struggle to save Boston by saving each other.

©2017 Wen Spencer (P)2017 Audible, Inc.

It grows on you

A bit confusing at the start but a great story with wonderful world building and complex characters. I can't wait for the next one!

Good material, not so great narration

To be clear, I love this story. Hand it out to loads of people to try to hook them on it as well. But the narration on this version is so erratic. The reader for Seth doesn't seem to understand how to do anything other than a straight read. No inflection, no characterization, weird breaks in sentences. I also found it odd and off putting that the narrators for both teenage boy characters are noticeably so much older than the people they are portraying. Still finishing the audiobook, just grimacing my way through Seth and Joshua.

Good but not great

I enjoy Wen Spencer's books and I was eager to read this one. It's fun, original, and kept my attention throughout, but it's not a great book. There is some cursory character development that I thought could have been more thoroughly executed and it would have added a lot to the listening experience. Additionally, there is some cutesy dialogue that made me cringe. If you like Wen Spencer, these things may not bother you, but they did bug me a bit. My biggest issue however was the narration. The narrator for the character of Seth was horribly miscast. The character is supposed to be nearly 16. The actor sounds like a 50 year old smoker. It just didn't work and I found it really distracting.
Aside from these issues, I did enjoy the book and think it's worth a credit.

IMPATIENT FOR MORE

Involvement with the characters was immediate and strong. The pace of the book never left you wanting for things to move along but hoping you could keep up with the movement. Interest never waned. By the end of the story you hoped for another chapter instead of "we hope you enjoyed this..." .
My preference is for one reader. The multiple readers was annoying, not enhancing. Some readers were softer spoken and volume adjustment was necessary , as was retracing read parts to pick up the unheard parts. The change in voice also required trying to identify the associated character, not always an immediate accomplishment.
Other than the performance, the book was all thumbs up. I searched for the next in the series, and was disappointed it was not available.

wonderful adventure

I almost didn't buy this audio due to a previous commentary that held issue with Boston accent and pronunciations. Don't be put off. The multiple voices is a relief vs hearing one person confuse the voice accents of each character. This is my first experience with this author and I will be delving into other novels by her. I'm completely charmed and enjoyed this world very much.

great book

I really enjoyed this book and look forward to another one in this series.

Engrossing new book

I really hope this will be the beginning of a new series. The world-building was intriguing, and the characters engaging. A solid story and the narrators did an excellent job.

Great story

Since this is an audible review I'm going to mainly rate the narrators. First though, this is a really fun, unusual fantasy with werewolves, vampires, witches and bad guys. The characters are really well drawn and I loved the story.

The tale is told from the viewpoint of 4 characters, Elise who is a magical angelic being/warrior; Seth who is a werewolf and the Prince of Boston; Joshua who is a newly bitten werewolf who didn't know that he actually came from a werewolf family; and Decker who is a 300 year-old vampire.

Elise is from Boston but grew up in Greece, and her narrator gave her a fairly international accent. Joshua is a kid who grew up in a family of mechanics in upstate New York, and his narrator has not given him any particular accent, he just sounds like a teenage boy. Decker is the very old vampire who has lived in various places and is currently living in Boston, his narrator has given him an aristocratic type of accent. Seth is the heir to the Boston werewolf pack who grew up in Boston but is currently living with the wolf king in New York. His narrator gave him a sort of growly, heavy Boston accent, which is perfect for his character. The problem is that this seems to be the only accent he does. When he is narrating the kid from Upstate NY, the 300 year old vampire, and and the Prince of Boston all have growly Boston accents. It is very difficult to understand who is talking. And all of a sudden Elise sounds like the vampire.

Overall the narrators really nailed their characters. Some of the narrators were more successful than others in maintaining the continuity of the secondary characters when they take over their POV. But the book was fun to listen to and overall it was interesting to have the character's point of view changing. I highly recommend it.

oh my blarb! so good!

This story was a huge surprise for me. A random choice I picked and it turned out to be absolutely wonderful.

Great story. Half of the narrators were good

I absolutely loved this story. The only negative I'd say would be the narrators for Joshua and Seth. Aside from using the same tone to make it a little difficult to differentiate between characters, they seemed to almost be reading with no inflection to match the context of the dialog. Seth is supposed to be young but was always portrayed as growly. I get he's a werewolf but still... On a plus, I loved the narration for Decker.