Hard Magic: Book I of the Grimnoir Chronicles

Another reviewer mentioned that they found the narrator's accent difficult to understand in places, but I thought all his accents and voices were spot on and superb. I didn't have any trouble understanding him.

The story is excellent and unlike anything I've read before: a comic detective novel with plenty of action-packed magic, and more than a few moving scenes.

The Grim Noir are a magical organisation sworn to protect the innocent - usually humans with magical abilities persecuted by both non-magical people and the sinister Chairman, who experiments on children and performs other atrocities in the name of strength and race purity.
Jake Sullivan, former prison inmate and P.I., reluctantly joins forces with one of the few remaining units of the Grim Noir to protect the magical world from the Chairman and his most evil and feared Iron Guard - who also happens to be Jake's older brother...

The whole story is told in exciting and action-filled chapters from the perspectives of several different characters - each with varying degrees of both magical ability and morality - that help draw in the reader and explain the rules of this reality, its history, and its current political situation, without any flagging of pace or feeling that you're having to get through a lot of boring exposition (which is often a common failing in the sci-fi / fantasy genre).

The villains were realistic, their motives were understandable (if deeply flawed), and every single character was so brilliantly crafted, with such unique voices and perspectives, that it was truly a pleasure to listen to and I was sad to reach the end.

I really hope there is a sequel, I would love to know more about the Knights of the Grim Noir (especially Fay, Sullivan, and Heimrich) and to know how they will tackle the continuing threat to the source of all magic.

Lastly, I agree with the other reviewer; the 'historical' quotes at the beginning of each chapter added a sense of realism, and I loved them.

I just wanted to say i totally love this book. Interesting story and interesting setting to have it in. Really looking forward to the follow up.

My only gripe with this book is that, on very rare occasions, about twice in the entire fifteen hours, the otherwise superb reader becomes difficult to understand due to his accent. This was nothing that couldn't be remedied however by a quick rewind and a little bit of effort put into a second listen.
On the other hand this is an excellent piece of fiction superbly mixing a world of magic and power with 1930's America. The main characters are to a one engaging and more than enough to carry you through this pleasingly long tale on their own. The author has obviously put a lot of effort into altering earth's history to accommodate the power of sorcerers and this is emphasized by short sections at the beginning of every chapter, my favourite being a speech aboard the Titanic on its fifth anniversary voyage.
If you enjoy this audible book then be sure to check out the Skulduggery Pleasant series while you wait for the no doubt excellent sequel.

If you want fast pace, gun toting action incorporating a bit of magic thrown in to add spice then you could do a lot worse than this. I can't put my finger on why I liked it, but I did and I'll be getting the whole series. Though it's a audio book it's one "I couldn't put down" ;-)

This book just didn't gel for me. There are a lot of fight sequences and I found these difficult to follow. I got the end of Part One and didn't bother with Part Two. I wasn't engaged by any of the characters. Entirely my fault as I wanted to try something I wouldn't usually read but sadly this genre isn't for me. As always though with Audible the quality of the reading is terrific.

I absolutely love this book! It's funny, tense, interesting, quirky, heart-rending.... As ever, the narrator makes the book and Bronson Pinchot really does a good job here. I'm really not sure that reading it myself would have made it any better. In some ways it's like a graphic novel being read out loud with full details (I'm not a major fan of graphic novels, so it's curious I found this). Anyway, this is an excelllent choice. I hope Audible get the 2nd Grimnoir series out soon.

Not my usual kind of book (that's more hard SF) but the steam-punk was "coherent" and that was a pleasant surprise and the story is good...

It's much more than you would expect from reading the editorial synopsis - that synopsis takes you about a quarter of the way into the story. In the rest you'll learn more of this world's magical paradigm, the heroes save the world and a soul.

I liked this book it was livley and fun to listen to, with a good narrator who kept you interested.
It reminded me of the Mike Hammer/Mickey Spillane novels cracking stuff and I look forward to his next one.