Listened to audio narrated well by Nicole Poole. I can't imagine another narrator for this series. She does a great job with the various accents and making each character unique and easy to identify.

While previous book in the series blended all the characters this book is almost entirely about Simon Hunt and Ella Fruend.

Simon Hunt is a rake, that keeps an abusive past well hidden behind a front of brash behavior. He's also an excellent trainer and strategist, who is hired to train a deaf learner in secret. Simon's brash in your face kind of guy that either repulses you or charms you.

Ella Freund lost her family to a senseless attack. She was taken in and changed for unknown reasons. When an attack leaves her deaf, her creator gets frustrated with her lack of training progress and her 'defect' and hires Simon to train Ella so she can get her off her hands. Ella is so much more than she seems and I enjoyed watching her best mages with her unique fighting style and seeing her regain her confidence as she learned to navigate the mage world, despite being deaf.

This book is filled with laughter and sadness as these two both have tragic histories and danger as Ella is being hunted. They both have to face truths about themselves and deal with their past, which was emotional. It is clear as their story unfolds how perfect these two are for each other, but this is just the beginning of their story.

A good read in the Mageri series, there were a few odd things in the story that niggled at me, such as her creator's behavior didn't seem to match ideas to action and some oddities regarding the ultimate threat to Ella. I also disliked the brief bit about Silver and Logan at the end (see my review of the Gift for more details).

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