Perfect

Great story, fab characters and incredible narration. Sad there is only one book left in the series.

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Sheer entertainment!

May not be the greatest work of fiction ever but for entertainment value it’s right up there, loving these characters so much I know I’m going to miss them when they’re gone, aided very much by the excellent narration
A rare 5 stars from me

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Fantastic

I love these books, and this one is just as thrilling as the first. The performance by Ray Porter is amazing as always bringing these characters to life and making them leap from the 'page'. The story is thrilling and rarely let's up. Fantastic.

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enjoyed it

another good story and still keen to continue to the other books ggh jhg

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Cannot wait

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

A rip roaring ride picking up where the first book left off.

Which character – as performed by Bronson Pinchot – was your favourite?

Heinrich (not sure of the spelling) is a wonderfully dry character.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes but stretched it to two days

Any additional comments?

I ploughed through the first book and loved it. Brought to mind a slightly grittier series akin to the decoder ring theatre style of noir with banter between the characters carrying well. This was a natural choice to read after the first book as i had to know how it ended. Now i need to wait until next month for the third instalment.

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1 person found this helpful

Excellent.

Intricate and very well told story.
Once I started I couldn’t stop.
Bronson Pritchot is also brilliant.

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Bring On Book 3!

This is the second book in the Grimnoir Chronicles, after 'Hard Magic'.

If you loved the first book, you won't be disappointed with the second. All our fave characters are back along with some new ones; Grimnoir Knights, Imperium Guards, and a new sinister government organisation.

I was as completely enthralled by this as the first book, and some of the characters surprised me with how much I liked them - I would never have thought I could start rooting for an Iron Guard!

There were a lot of laugh out loud moments, especially any scene with Heimrich, who aside from Fay and Sullivan, is easily my favourite character.

I wasn't keen on the idea of a spirit phone communicating with the deceased Chairman (this happens very early on, so not really a spoiler), but in a story that involves teleporting, mind control, human lie detectors, gravity spikers, healers, and an alien magical entity (among other things), it's perhaps a little churlish of me to have a problem with communicating with the dead.

My only other issue is that of the sole English character being portrayed as the stuck-in-the-eighteenth-century, toffee-nosed, upper-class, authority-without-a-clue figure. As an English person, I found it a little wearing to be met with this cliché yet again, but since he was only in the story for about two minutes I got over it quickly - just hope this isn't a recurring theme for Correia.

If you like supernatural action, comedy, adventure, and anything with elements of superheroes, you will not be disappointed purchasing 'Hard Magic' and 'Spellbound'.

Fast paced, intelligent, with a lot of humour and thoroughly enjoyable smart-ass comments from our Grimnoir Knights, I loved this story, and I know I will listen to it often.

The story is told from the omniscient perspective, hopping in and out of all the different characters' thoughts, and the narration is spot on, thoughts more subtle than dialogue, and it is always clear who is thinking or speaking.

Bring on Book 3!

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9 people found this helpful

Astounding...

This series encompasses more or less everything I love in a book, multiple point of view, multi-layered intense plot,well defined individual characters, no cardboard cut-outs here, its, in a class of it's own mixing multiple genres and coming out with a delicately balanced perfect veritable feast for the imagination.
Wonderful, I suggest you read 'Hard magic' first which is just as good..

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7 people found this helpful

Astounding.

I can't stress enough how much I love this series! Imagine a sort of steampunk X-men/Watchmen with magic and tommy-guns and characters that you genuinely feel for and some absolutely fantastic narration.

Spellbound is the second book in the Grimnoir Chronicles series, an urban fantasy set in 1940s America with an alternate history and steampunk elements. It isn't overdone; everyone isn't walking about with clockwork parasols, but there are airships and historical figures and events referenced briefly to help the reader understand how the emergence of magic has shaped this reality.

The Grimnoir Chronicles world combines a fantastic, original superpower-based individual magic (one power per person, with the powers mostly identified and classified i.e. "Heavy" - someone who manipulates gravity, "Fade" - someone who phases through solid matter, etc.) with a more traditional rune-based magic, and even a few sci-fi elements. It isn't difficult to follow but is wonderfully detailed and immersive, and brought alive by characters who are all very distinct and different and complement one another brilliantly. I found all of the 'good guy' characters very likeable and cared about what happened to them very early on. There are none of the irritating shallow stereotypes seen a lot in fantasy, and the plot managed to surprise me as the characters thought of ingenious solutions I hadn't considered.

To top it all, Bronson Pinchot does a masterful job of the narration, capturing all of the characters perfectly and bringing across a very strong voice to each character's observations even though the book is written in 3rd person. It changes from person to place, speech to thought very quickly and Bronson never leaves you in any doubt as to who is speaking or what is happening.

The only criticism I have is that there's no release date yet for book 3.

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2 people found this helpful

Just as good as the 1st book.

We'll be getting the 3rd book for sure! Think you need to read the 1st to get the most of this one. Enjoyed character development & felt the plot flowed at a good rate.

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