Reviewed by Sadonna
TITLE: Witchbane 
SERIES: Witchbane
AUTHOR: Morgan Brice
NARRATOR: Kale Williams
PUBLISHER: Tantor Audio
LENGTH: 7 hrs and 34 min
RELEASE DATE: March 29, 2019
BLURB:
Seth Tanner and his brother Jesse’s fun evening debunking local urban legends ends with Jesse’s gruesome murder. Seth vows revenge on Jesse’s killer – too bad the murderer has been dead for a hundred years.
Seth uncovers a cycle of ritual killings that feed the power of a dark warlock’s immortal witch-disciples, and he’s hell bent on stopping Jackson Malone from becoming the next victim. He’s used to risking his neck. He never intended to risk his heart.
REVIEW:
While the beginning of this story in the form of the prologue starts out as sort of a lighthearted lark for two brothers on a Halloween night, we are soon thrown into the violence and murder. When Seth recovers, he is hell-bent on finding and destroying his brother’s murderer. Turns out that there are more things that go bump in the night than he was originally aware of and the urban legends have their roots in real monsters who prey on innocents.
For two years Seth has been training and hunting, trying to keep the next victim of the witch-disciple killers out of harm’s way. He arrives in Richmond looking for Jackson Malone. He’s doing his best to locate him, when he runs across a bartender that strikes his fancy. They meet up for a date cut short, but decide to reschedule for the next night. But it turns out that neither are who they have presented themselves to be. And when Seth realizes that he has to protect his target, he didn’t think he would be emotionally involved with that person.
I don’t want to be spoilery at all, but when Seth saves Jackson and they go into hiding while still trying to smoke out the immortal witch-disciple, things go from bad to worse. Seth is terrified that once again, he won’t be able to save the intended victim. Jackson/Evan is torn between believing Seth’s story and wondering if he’s dropped down the rabbit hole. As time runs out, they have a great deal of trouble communicating and trusting each other and when the bad guys turn out to be a lot closer than they ever suspected, it’s a race against time for Seth to save the next victim.
This is the action-packed roller-coaster kickoff to a series which has 3 books and a novella so far. I really enjoyed the supernatural elements in this story and the history and background the author provides. This is actually my first book from this author, but it definitely won’t be my last. Seth is a bit of a stoic to begin with – and why wouldn’t he be, given all he’s been through? Evan has been trying to keep off the radar of his abusive ex, so he isn’t exactly an open book either. Given their pasts, it’s not surprising that the trust between them is going to take some time. Between Seth’s survivor’s guilt and Evan’s vulnerability to manipulation of his emotions and suspicious nature, a good portion of the story involves both men trying to work out how to operate together instead of wary and reluctant partners. Kale Williams is a fantastic narrator. His voice choices for both MCs I thought were spot on and very sexy. His choices for the bad guys and the other supporting characters I also really enjoyed. My only niggle is his pronunciation of the word salve (US pronunciation is different from ROW I suspect). I am really interested to see where they go from here, given their very rocky start and all that they have already been through.
RATING: 
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