“Fade to Black: The Weir Chronicles, Book 1” is a pretty good start to a new series. To the world, Ian Black is a successful magician. An illusionist who is actually capable of real magic. He is also part of a secret organization that’s pledged to protect the earth from another organization that wants to subjugate it. As fate would have it, Ian rescues a college student named Rayne who is also studying for a journalism career. So of course, she latches on to the story of her mysterious rescuer, which then leads her dangerously close to Ian. There are some nice surprises in the course of the story unfolding and some things that I found too contrived. One example of this was Ian’s own inner circle arranging for Rayne to come to his home to get an interview. It may have served author Sue Duff’s storytelling, but given the circumstances of Ian’s secret life, I just couldn’t buy his own people bringing a reporter to his home without even running the idea buy him before hand.
Overall, Fade to Black is an enjoyable novel with an interesting hero type who is not exactly cut from a typical urban fantasy, cookie cutter mold. Also, Christopher J. Mayer does a solid job on the narration as well. It will be interesting to see what Ms. Duff does with book 2.
Finally, this audio book was provided by the narrator at no cost in exchange for an unbiased review courtesy of Audio Book Boom.