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Katie Chandler had always heard that New York is a weird and wonderful place, but this small-town Texas gal had no idea how weird until she moved there. Everywhere she goes, she sees something worth gawking at and Katie is afraid she's a little too normal to make a splash in the big city. Working for an ogre of a boss doesn't help. Then, seemingly out of the blue, Katie gets a job offer from Magic, Spells, and Illusions, Inc., a company that tricks of the trade to the magic community. For MSI, Katie's ordinariness is an asset.
Once upon a time, a girl named Sophie Drake danced with the fairies in the woods behind her grandparents' Louisiana home. But she closed the door to the fairy world and turned her back on the Fae when they tried to steal her little sister Emily. Fourteen years later, Sophie heads to New York City on a desperate mission. Emily, now an up-and-coming Broadway actress, has gone missing. Only Sophie suspects the Fae. Now Sophie has her work cut out for her.
December 1348: With the country in the grip of the Black Death, brothers John and William fear that they will shortly die and go to Hell. But as the end draws near, they are given an unexpected choice: either to go home and spend their last six days in their familiar world or to search for salvation across the forthcoming centuries - living each one of their remaining days 99 years after the last. John and William choose the future and find themselves in 1447, ignorant of almost everything going on....
Meet Greta Helsing, doctor to the undead. After inheriting a highly specialised and highly peculiar medical practice, Dr Helsing spends her days treating London's undead for a host of ills: vocal strain in banshees, arthritis in barrow-wights and entropy in mummies. Although barely making ends meet, this is the quiet, supernatural-adjacent life Greta's dreamed of since childhood. But when a sect of murderous monks emerges, killing human and undead alike, Greta must use her unusual skills to keep her supernatural clients - and the rest of London - safe.
Never volunteer for active duty... Bob Howard is a low-level techie working for a super-secret government agency. While his colleagues are out saving the world, Bob's under a desk restoring lost data. His world was dull and safe; but then he went and got Noticed. Now, Bob is up to his neck in spycraft, alternative universes, dimension-hopping terrorists, monstrous elder gods and the end of the world. Only one thing is certain: it will take more than 'control+alt+delete' to sort this mess out...
Tom Hazard has a dangerous secret. He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old, but owing to a rare condition, he's been alive for centuries. From Elizabethan England to jazz age Paris, from New York to the South Seas, Tom has seen a lot and now craves an ordinary life. Always changing his identity to stay alive, Tom has the perfect cover - working as a history teacher at a London comprehensive. Here he can teach the kids about wars and witch hunts as if he'd never witnessed them firsthand.
Katie Chandler had always heard that New York is a weird and wonderful place, but this small-town Texas gal had no idea how weird until she moved there. Everywhere she goes, she sees something worth gawking at and Katie is afraid she's a little too normal to make a splash in the big city. Working for an ogre of a boss doesn't help. Then, seemingly out of the blue, Katie gets a job offer from Magic, Spells, and Illusions, Inc., a company that tricks of the trade to the magic community. For MSI, Katie's ordinariness is an asset.
Once upon a time, a girl named Sophie Drake danced with the fairies in the woods behind her grandparents' Louisiana home. But she closed the door to the fairy world and turned her back on the Fae when they tried to steal her little sister Emily. Fourteen years later, Sophie heads to New York City on a desperate mission. Emily, now an up-and-coming Broadway actress, has gone missing. Only Sophie suspects the Fae. Now Sophie has her work cut out for her.
December 1348: With the country in the grip of the Black Death, brothers John and William fear that they will shortly die and go to Hell. But as the end draws near, they are given an unexpected choice: either to go home and spend their last six days in their familiar world or to search for salvation across the forthcoming centuries - living each one of their remaining days 99 years after the last. John and William choose the future and find themselves in 1447, ignorant of almost everything going on....
Meet Greta Helsing, doctor to the undead. After inheriting a highly specialised and highly peculiar medical practice, Dr Helsing spends her days treating London's undead for a host of ills: vocal strain in banshees, arthritis in barrow-wights and entropy in mummies. Although barely making ends meet, this is the quiet, supernatural-adjacent life Greta's dreamed of since childhood. But when a sect of murderous monks emerges, killing human and undead alike, Greta must use her unusual skills to keep her supernatural clients - and the rest of London - safe.
Never volunteer for active duty... Bob Howard is a low-level techie working for a super-secret government agency. While his colleagues are out saving the world, Bob's under a desk restoring lost data. His world was dull and safe; but then he went and got Noticed. Now, Bob is up to his neck in spycraft, alternative universes, dimension-hopping terrorists, monstrous elder gods and the end of the world. Only one thing is certain: it will take more than 'control+alt+delete' to sort this mess out...
Tom Hazard has a dangerous secret. He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old, but owing to a rare condition, he's been alive for centuries. From Elizabethan England to jazz age Paris, from New York to the South Seas, Tom has seen a lot and now craves an ordinary life. Always changing his identity to stay alive, Tom has the perfect cover - working as a history teacher at a London comprehensive. Here he can teach the kids about wars and witch hunts as if he'd never witnessed them firsthand.
Margot Cary has spent her life immersed in everything Lake Sackett is not. As an elite event planner, Margot's rubbed elbows with the cream of Chicago society and made elegance and glamour her business. She's riding high until one event goes tragically, spectacularly wrong. Now she's blackballed by the gala set and in dire need of a fresh start - and apparently the McCreadys are in need of an event planner with a tarnished reputation.
Maybe it was the Shenanigans gift certificate that put her over the edge. When children's librarian and self-professed nice girl Jane Jameson is fired by her beastly boss and handed $25 in potato skins instead of a severance check, she goes on a bender that's sure to become Half Moon Hollow legend. On her way home, she's mistaken for a deer, shot, and left for dead.
When LA’s vampires, witches, and werewolves make a mess, they call Scarlett Bernard to clean it up. Her ability as a null erases all magical traces from anything — or anyone — that comes within ten feet of her, and keeps humans in the dark about the city’s paranormal activity. One night when she’s called to a grisly crime scene, Scarlett is spied by the all-too-human LAPD cop Jesse Cruz, who strikes up a deal with her: he’ll keep quiet about the supernatural underworld if she helps him crack the case. She agrees, but the city’s chief vampire, Dash, starts to suspect Scarlett is behind the murders and will reveal all she knows of his shadowy empire. Now it’ll take more than Scarlett’s unique abilities to clear her name, keep the underworld underground, and track down the real killer.
After seeing her maybe-mobster boss murder a guy, Delaney James assumes a new identity and pretends to be a mail order bride. She finds her groom-to-be living in a town that celebrates Halloween every day. Weird. But not as weird as what she doesn't know. Her groom-to-be is a 400-year-old vampire.
Timid, socially awkward, and plagued by self-esteem issues, Fred has never been the adventurous sort. One fateful night - different from the night he died, which was more inconvenient than fateful - Fred reconnects with an old friend at his high school reunion. This rekindled relationship sets off a chain of events thrusting him right into the chaos of the parahuman world.
Were you a sherbet lemon or chocolate lime fan? Penny chews or hard boiled sweeties (you do get more for your money that way)? The jangle of your pocket money… the rustle of the pink and green striped paper bag… Rosie Hopkins thinks leaving her busy London life, and her boyfriend Gerard, to sort out her elderly Aunt Lilian's sweetshop in a small country village is going to be dull. Boy is she wrong. Lilian Hopkins has spent her life running Lipton's sweetshop, through wartime and family feuds. As she struggles with the idea that it might finally be time to settle up, she also wrestles with the secret history hidden behind the jars of beautifully coloured sweets. Welcome to Rosie Hopkins' Sweetshop of Dreams - a novel - with recipes.
A questing we will go
Now that the Magic, Spells, and Illusions, Inc. team has defeated the nefarious Spellworks, the only "competition" in town, Katie Chandler doesn't have much to do as director of marketing, and she's starting to question her role at MSI. Her boyfriend Owen Palmer, on the other hand, is in hog heaven, translating an ancient and powerful magical manuscript. But then he finds that the cryptic text describing the location of an enchanted gem known as the Eye of the Moon has radically changed. This deadly stone gives its holder enhanced power over others and a craving for more power. It once caused a terrible war before it was safely hidden and then lost - and now it seems to be in New York and set in an elven brooch that renders its wearer invulnerable. Whoever has this brooch could take over the world.
Katie and Owen must find it before anyone else does, and they're not the only ones searching. They'll need all the help they can get, including Katie's visiting grandmother. But who can they trust when their allies fall under its spell? Not to mention the new enemies who are deadlier than anything they've faced before.
I'm a big fan of this series - absolutely addicted, in fact. However, this is my least favorite in the series, as it is very different than the others. Still a good story, with characters I adore, but it was one non-stop race, which didn't feel realistically possible - something that hadn't felt the case in the other books in the series. I can suspend belief rather successfully even in the most fantastic of stories, but I found it harder to do so in this book - who can run for that many hours? How many times are we supposed to believe the narrow escapes? And how can all of this have happened in such a short period of time?
I still gave five stars because I enjoyed the basic premise, and the characters are the same wonderful characters, and I was glad to visit them again. I do hope to continue seeing more books in this series - I really do love it. I just hope we don't see this hard-to-believe race-like format in the future.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful
I have enjoyed most of Shanna Swendson's books and this book started out promising then turned into a 7 hour chase scene. Literally. Both Owen and Katie are now Magical Immunes. It begins with a cute scene with Owen absorbed in his studies and Katie trying to surprise him and break his obsessive study of old magic. But then a powerful magical stone is stolen, Katie and Owen are the only people that can be trusted with it since it has no power over them and they literally run from people for the entire book. Katie's Granny fighting on their side was entertaining for about 30 min and even that got old. I'm almost as obsessive as Owen so I had to finish the book, but I was never so glad to be done. Read the first couple of chapters and the last chapter and you won't have missed anything. And I'm sorry, but the ending with Mimi was ridiculous. She was obsessed with the stone, knew the fake was a fake, but at the end she just walks away with the fake without an argument? I've given all of Shanna's others a 4 or 5, but this one just hurt. Shanna writes too well to rate a 1 or 2, but a 3 was the best I could give the story.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful
series is good but all the chasing and running got kind of old. hopefully things start looking up now???
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
Any additional comments?
Taking the whole Part II of the book chasing around for "THE Eye" was a bit too much. It seems like the author was using a lot of the chase simply to make the book longer.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
Would you consider the audio edition of No Quest for the Wicked to be better than the print version?
No, I possibly would like the print version better. Maybe it wouldn't have that "sarcastic" feel to the narration.
What about Eva Wilhelm’s performance did you like?
She is able to designate voices/tones for the other characters quite consistantly
Any additional comments?
This was my least favorite in the series only because the "chase" scene dragged on and on and on
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
I do believe that this is the best one yet. The plot is more developed and there are many new interesting characters while some old funny ones are revived. Don't miss this one.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
What made the experience of listening to No Quest for the Wicked the most enjoyable?
I was hooked...from the first book in the series right down to the this last one. It was a world I didn't want to exit upon the ending of the fist book in the series. So within a week I had listed to all of them..and now I'm left wanting...and waiting for the next one.
What about Eva Wilhelm’s performance did you like?
Being from Texas I totally loved Eva Wilhelm's southern drawl. I loved the easy flow of the narrative and the easily recognizable voice of the characters.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
Keystone cops gone bad. It is one lone chase and became very old and very boring very quickly. The only thing good I can say about this book is that Granny is visiting Katie in NYC and she is a riot.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful
did not care for it at all.,it was boring and the chase for the stone to long and unnecessary.
A lovely romp through an alt universe where magic is real. The heroine is engaging and funny. The hero is oblivious and dashing. The story line is engaging and fun. I started the first on a whim based on the cover, title and reviews. I'm glad I did. They have been quite fun. Lighthearted interactions that have kept me engaged through out. I'm looking forward to the next one.