A magical prequel featuring pirates, goblins, elves and stolen souls. Raine Benares is the only (or at least mostly) law abiding member of a criminal family. Distancing herself from the family business sees her making a living as a seeker - a person who finds and retrieves stolen goods, missing items or kidnapped people.

In this first case, Raine is charged with finding some stolen jewellery and teams up with her cousin, Captain Phaelan Benares - second most feared pirate of the seven kingdoms - and newcomer to the city, the infamous Tamnais Nathrach - the ex right hand and magical enforcer of the goblin queen. And Raine needs all the help she can get because it's not just stolen jewellery she's after - but stolen souls.

I really liked this. The banter between Raine and Phaelan and Tam and the rest is snarky and hilarious. The mystery was interesting and the world building was well done - even if not anything particularly original. It was full of action and adventure and a great start to a new urban fantasy series. 4 stars. ( )

Nice to see Raine before all the tangle of Magic Lost - though if that's what happened, there are some references, to events and people, missing from Magic Lost. She should have thought about that second in command, and had an idea (mistaken, but an idea) why Nukpana knew her name. Ah well. ( )

After reading and liking her SPI Files series, I thought I’d give Lisa Shearin’s Raine Benares series a try. I started with the audio of "Wild Card", a prequel story to the series.

"Wild Card" is a quick adventure story about Raine, her criminal cousin Phaelan, and a seductively handsome goblin mage, Tamnais Nathrach, saving the souls of children being used as chips in a high-stakes poker game. This story gives me a little background about Raine and her family as well as the world she inhabits.

The narrator, Eileen Stevens, does a pretty good job with the voices. I haven’t listened to Stevens before, but her voice is good. I might look into speeding up the narrative just a bit, though.

I both read and listened to this story. Reading it didn’t do much for me (but admittedly, I was sick at the time and possibly not focusing well), but the audio did much more. I like not having to worry about how to pronounce the names when I listen to the audio – a benefit I hadn’t thought of before.

Overall, I think I will listen to the Raine Benares series rather than reading it, and I’m looking forward it.

Rating: 4

Purchased. Review courtesy of onebooktwo.com | one book, two reviews. ( )

As a novella, the length makes it harder to do a proper analysis. If a full book continues to form, we have a fun adventure, likable characters, fairly good world building, and a nice amount of danger and conflict (for an adventure). Overall 80% and will certainly be reading a full length title by this author. ( )