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A Little Familiar
- Familiar Spirits, Book 1
- Narrated by: Joshua Macrae
- Length: 3 hrs and 33 mins
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A Little Familiar
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Summary
Powerful witch Piotr Russell has resigned himself to loneliness, because ordinary humans can’t know what he is, and other witches are intimidated by his abilities. Generations of Russells have lived and died with only their familiars at their side. The presence of a friendly familiar is enough to keep even the loneliest witch sane, and yet Piotr deliberately hasn’t chosen one. He forces himself to keep busy instead, but the emptiness of his house haunts him even more the spirit of Great-Great-Aunt Elysia in the parlor. With Samhain and Halloween approaching, he’ll have much to do, and knowing that, his concerned coven seizes the chance to intervene and sends help to his door in the form of Bartleby Dorchester.
The rarest of rare jewels, Bartleby is a human familiar: a witch with no magic of his own, and a desire to find a strong witch to help and serve. In particular, he desires to help and serve Piotr, and everything in Piotr wants to let him. Bartleby was meant to be his familiar; Piotr knows it as surely as he knows when it will rain or when the apples in his garden will ripen. But what Piotr wants from Bartleby, all he’s ever wanted, is for Bartleby to love him, something he thinks is impossible. Russells live and die unloved, and he won’t allow Bartleby to feel obligated to spend his life with him as his familiar if he could be happy in love with someone else.
But Samhain is a time for change, when walls come down and borders grow thin, and Bartleby isn’t going to waste what might be his last chance to convince Piotr that they were meant to be. He might have no magic, but love is a power all its own.
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What listeners say about A Little Familiar
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- avid
- 02-12-20
Gentle, understated and lovely romance
I love this story. It's a gentle, understated and lovely romance set in a world where witches coexist with the regular world. The protagonists are a very powerful witch who loves the magic of everyday, and his longed-for-love that he actively distances from to to protect his love from the dull and "small" - a persnickety fuck, per his own classification. His love is a gender-fluid, very lovely non-witch who will be a perfect companion (in this world, a "familiar") if the witch would ever acknowledge his need and the companion's true interests.
The physical setting is a lovely Halloween or Samhain settnig, i.e. end-of-year-harvest-let's try to survive, celebrate and thrive until spring.
It's a very slow, no-big-plot-but-emotional-growth-plot plot, and it's comforting and lovely. The familiar book 3 is the strongest one in the series, but this one is lovely, and I love Bartleby.
The narrator isn't the best R Cooper (R Nieman is the best) has used, but I bought it on itunes as soon as it was released, and again on audible because audible is a better platform.
I prefer to listen to this narrator at a sligthly reduced pace (0.8 on audible) because he speaks very fast and breathy, slightly monotonous at his lovely deep voice. I know a lot of people prefer a faster speed, but as a non-native speaker, I can't relax at this narrator's natural pace, but slightly slower I get the breathing room and voice distinction I prefer, as well as the world-building.
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