Balance is a very good and unique entry in the already overly crowded urban fantasy genre. Balance is the first book of a 6 book series (so far, as of 7/16). If you are tired of the same old story of a magic using private investigator, give Balance a try. It is an enjoyable and interesting take on Good vs Evil and explores the possibility and responsibilities of a third party in that two party fight. I can see how there are going to be significant moral quandaries in future installments as one party or another gains the upper hand and the protagonist and his allies return balance to the conflict. It will be interesting to see how the protagonist and his allies handle them these moral dilemmas and where it takes them in their personal development.
Just a few minutes into the story our protagonist, Landon, gets killed. He wakes up in Purgatory and soon learns that he is unique: he is exactly equal parts angelic, demonic, and human and, as such, is needed to represent the cosmic force of balance in the ongoing battle between Heaven and Hell. His mission is to make sure neither party, Heaven or Hell, ever gets the upper hand because if they do, humanity will be the real loser. He is soon thrown, untrained, into the thick of things on Earth and learns that both of the forces of Heaven and Hell agree on only one thing: the representatives of Balance are universally hated and killed on sight. Landon has powers but no idea what they are or how to use them and it is interesting to see how he adapts to his circumstances. Along the way Landon picks up a few allies and their inclusion promises depth and character growth in subsequent adventures. The plot is fast-paced and easily held my attention as I finished this almost 10 hr audiobook in a day and a half. I *greatly* appreciated that the author refrained from making this an angst-ridden novel of “o woe is me, am I Good or Bad?” and had the protagonist accept his role and move on.
The narration by Jeff Hays was superb. He demonstrated remarkable skill with his voice. For example, a 10 year old girl sounded like a 10 yr old girl, not a man trying to sound like a girl (I am still trying to figure out how he did it!). There were plenty of opportunities for him to show off his talents: cultured Italian accented English, demonic and angelic voices of both sexes, rage, grief, remorse. There were several instances of appropriate and intentional overdubbing (for ex, a giggle/chuckle in the background as the character spoke) and several examples of the use of electronic voice modulation as a were-beast or angel or demon raged and it was said in the text how the character’s voice reverberated… This was an excellent example of how an audiobook experience can be more than just a book read aloud. This was simply a superb performance and it elevated a good book to very good status. I have added Mr Hays to my “Narrators-to-be-watched” category and would gladly base a buying decision on his choice as narrator/performer of that audiobook. The production quality was above average and showed an attention to detail that I normally associate with Audible Studios or Blackstone Audio productions; for production quality, a compliment doesn’t get much better than that!
Balance is a worthy entry into the urban fantasy genre and a promising start to a series with unlimited potential. The real stars of this book were the interesting premise and the excellent narration. With a lot of the character development and world building out of the way, I anticipate successive novels will be difficult for the listener to hit pause. I am definitely going to be exploring more of this interesting world and conflict Mr Forbes has given us.
I received this audiobook for free courtesy of Audiobook Jukebox in exchange for a fair and unbiased review and doing so has no effect on my review, positive or negative.