Shadow Beasts

A Magical Library Urban Fantasy Novel

By: Nellie H. Steele

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins

Publisher's summary

If Paige isn’t careful, her new job could land her in an early grave.

Paige Turner’s zero-balance bank account demands she take on a new job, but she never expected it would be as Shadow Harbor’s newest librarian. Now the unlucky orphan is learning it’s not books she’ll be shelving…but magic. Dark, dangerous, deadly magic.

Her new position requires she keep the supernatural subworld at bay while retrieving and archiving magical artifacts from around the globe. If she fails, the world may just be doomed…but even trying could get her killed.

Teaming up with a snarktastic teacup dragon doesn’t seem to be helping, either. Paige still struggles to master magic and shelve supernatural secrets. And when her first assignment involves massive multiplication of a group of wayward werewolves, she fears the world may not survive her tenure as librarian.

Fans of The Librarians and Warehouse 13 will love this enchanting new cozy contemporary fantasy series.

Buy Shadow Beasts now to start shelving magic today!

I liked the premise and will purchase the next in the series

The virtual voice misses the nuance of dialog and leaves the story a bit flat. A human performance would be better or a non audible read.

the story seemed interesting but

The story had potential but the AI voice was odd and the writing not good enough to compensate for it. I'm hoping this is an early work and the author gets better. I will keep an eye out for more from them in hopes.

AI and computer generated performance dissatisfactory. I am extremely disappointed.

The computer generated narration lacked affect, emotion, and caused misinterpretation. The computer was unable to pronounce the appropriate form of the words in the story. It did have minor emphasis on some phrasing however it created emphasis on the wrong words and phrases. Overall the performance was exceedingly poor. The story line might have been fun and interesting if performed by real people, for example Amanda Ronconi or other story teller who use their voice to tell a story and make it believable. It is painful to listen to this story because of the poor narration. I wanted to hear this story and now I am biased AGAINST this author and her novels.

I liked the story

I did not like the virtual voice. Sounded too much like same voice for all characters. Plus starting out with the story you don’t get the feel of the action, it was slightly monotone.

Voice not the best

Story would be good but not enjoying the narration. Maybe I’ll just read the book instead of listening. Perhaps they will have a new recording sometime in the future and I will try again.

I enjoyed the storyline. it was playful and and creative

the virtual narration did not do this book justice. it would have been better with a real person narrating

AI hurt this story

I loved the story. Very imaginative, and descriptive. However, AI did not do the story justice. Many confusing inflections, mispronunciations, and misinterpretations of passages…..as well as sounding like the voice needed to clear her “voice”! So glad I didn’t pay for this. The story would have been so much better with a live performance. Hope this AI reading doesn’t become the norm!!

the female ai voice comes across better but still not as good as live narrative.

I like the story but some of the world building and action details were not fleshed out enough. IMO I did enjoy the story and characters.

Not a fan of the virtual narrator

The virtual narration sounded fine for most of the book. However, there were areas where it seemed so artificial that I almost stopped listening. The technology might be good, but it’s far from great!
Cute story though!

Bad AI narration

The AI voice is far from Adequate. I much prefer a live actor. It keeps our attention better. This seems to drag. Aside from the AI voice Paige’s inclination to clumsy accidents gets old.