The Last Magician

By: Lisa Maxwell

Narrated by: Candace Thaxton

Length: 16 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's summary

From Unhooked author Lisa Maxwell comes a captivating new world filled with magic and deception, about a girl who must travel back in time to find a mysterious book that could save her future.

Stop the Magician.

Steal the book.

Save the future.

In modern-day New York, magic is all but extinct. The remaining few who have an affinity for magic - the Mageus - live in the shadows, hiding who they are. Any Mageus who enters Manhattan becomes trapped by the Brink, a dark energy barrier that confines them to the island. Crossing it means losing their power - and often their lives.

Esta is a talented thief, and she's been raised to steal magical artifacts from the sinister Order that created the Brink. With her innate ability to manipulate time, Esta can pilfer from the past, collecting these artifacts before the Order even realizes she's there. And all of Esta's training has been for one final job: traveling back to 1902 to steal an ancient book containing the secrets of the Order - and the Brink - before the Magician can destroy it and doom the Mageus to a hopeless future.

But Old New York is a dangerous world ruled by ruthless gangs and secret societies, a world where the very air crackles with magic. Nothing is as it seems, including the Magician himself. And for Esta to save her future, she may have to betray everyone in the past.

©2017 Lisa Maxwell (P)2017 Simon & Schuster Audio

A magical read!

The Last Magician had me hooked early and I didn't want it to end. Can't wait for the sequel to come out. Lisa Maxwell is a great writer and makes the scenes come alive with her words. Candace Thaxton is a great narrator and brought the book and characters to life with her voices.

Exciting book, annoying narrator

The book is fun and captivating story, but the narrator’s reading is so annoying because she ends each phrase with the unnatural lilting as if it’s a question. I think she’s trying to be dramatic but it’s distracting. Rarely does the narrator ruin the book, but this one does for me.

loved it.

Loved it! Captivating from the beginning to the very end! Great read! Easy to follow.

Enticing story!

This was one of those stories that had me guessing as to what was going to happen and actually surprising me. Not a typical boring story line for sure, would recommend!

Faltered In the End

Would you listen to The Last Magician again? Why?

No, the ending of the book really decreases my desire to read the book again.

What did you like best about this story?

The description of the events and the characters are vivid but not overwrought.

what a truly magical story

what a magical story. drawing you in from the start until the end. i am already for book 2!

Just okay... weird narration.

I really wanted to love this book but I didn't, it just was ok. The narrator performance was very odd for me with way too many ill placed inflections. I found it distracting.

As for the story, all the interesting background elements I usually like are there. Magic, history, time travel, crime heists and diverse characters are all there, but it wasn't enough.

It opens strong with an introduction to Esta, a time manipulating thief and our protagonist, but midway through everything starts to drag. I found myself not caring much about Esta or what happened to anyone after a certain point.

The saving grace is that it does get better at the very end with a nice little turn, but the payoff wasn't big enough and the book could have been 25% shorter.

Max Entertainment from Maxwell

This was a great story: it had elements of history, a con game, magic, twists and turns that kept me guessing who was gonna out perform whom, and a mild sense of romance ( which I am extremely glad about- Thank you Ms. Maxwell). I loved the coming together and the explanation of whose who and how it all ties together. I even enjoyed the ending, up to the last sentence. Ms. Maxwell has created another elaborate tale, in fantasy fiction and really brought to life 3-dimensional characters, the only thing I wish it had, was more depravity and darker characters. I mean really really dark characters. But , I tore through it ( and listened while doing laundry and the bathrooms) in one weekend !IT ROCKED !!

interesting

The story jumps around. The time travel got a little confusing. The Lady that read the story made you feel like you where on a rollercoaster. Her voice would go high at weird times and took away from the story.

Good and yet...

First off, I liked the premise of the book. The characters were -mostly - well drawn. Heart was likable and understandable. Esta? Well, while I liked her, I also found her tendency to do what she shouldn't to be a major problem. Yes, it sort of saved her in the end, but I hope she will begin to grow out of it in the next book.

I had the professor figured out by the time the spotlight shown on the bad guy, though I couldn't understand HOW he was him.

The main problem for the book was its pacing. It was so slow. I wish that had been handled better, because the story would go on and on, giving us the bits of info we needed and then we'd hit a HUGe finale-stye scene, only to realize there was still 10 hours left of audio, 5 hours, 2 hours... And the last two chapters, which were the actual excitement at the end? Weren't exciting all. The was disapointing.

The narrator's voice was good, though she didn't have a big range of voices. In fact, several of the characters tended to have their voices blended together quite often.

That said, I am probably going to go on to the next book because A: I want to know what's in store for Esta, Heart, & Loughlin. B: I hope the author gets better on her pacing.