I wanted to love this book. Heck, I should have loved this book. It had so much going for it. A great concept. (ancient relics that grant magical/super powers to people) Excellent narration delivered by the talented Andrew Tell. Unfortunately the story is a rambling mess. The book is nearly 26 hours long, which in itself is not a problem. I love long books, whether I am reading or listening, but the story is just a rambling mess. There are huge number of chapters where nothing happens, no character development, no action to advance the story. What we get is a running interior monologue from the main character. Every thought that pops into the characters head we are give. In the middle of an action scene the action will actually stop as we get 4 pages of the main character analyzing what is happening, with him repeating himself over and over and over. There are also odd instances where the main character will pat himself on the back for figuring something out that he was clearly told much earlier. Example? Sure. At one point the main character is questioning these two characters about what their powers are. The one kid flat out states that he is a mind reader. Ten minutes later something is said, and the main character is like “Ah, just as I suspected, He’s a mind reader!” As you suspected? Suspected? You were TOLD that 10 minutes ago!. And things that happen repeatedly. As I said, the concept behind the story is great, but this book could really have benefitted from the author working with a developmental editor. This feels like a rough first draft where the author wrote out scene after scene, but then never went back and edited it into a tight story.

As I’ve said repeatedly I loved the concept, and as always Andrew Tell’s narration was excellent (and honestly it was his narration alone that made me not give up on this one), unfortunately it just didn’t come together for me and that’s a shame. I’m actually quite sad as this could have been one heck of a series, which would have lent itself to becoming an excellent Netflix show.

I was given a free review copy of this audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.