Booklog 99/2024: Lindsey Davis: Two for the Lions - Marcus Didius Falco #10 – Audiobook

Narrated by Gordon Griffin

Falco has a new plan to make money, assisting with Vespasian's census of AD 73, and exposing those who have under-declared their taxes. Working with Anacrites the spy, he investigates the businesses incolved with supplying gladiators and wild animals for the ring. He needs to make money in order to join the middle-rank, which will enable him to finally marry Helena Justina. When one of the arena lions is murdered, Falco investigates. The death toll mounts and it's not just lions. I like the Falco books, but this one is a bit lacklustre. Gordon Griffin is adequate, but not an exciting narrator. Altogether it felt as though both author and narrator were dialling it in a bit.

Booklog 100/2024: Benedict Jacka: An Inheritance of Magic - An Inheritance of Magic #1

Narrated by Will Watt.

Stephen Oakwood is a young, talented but inexperienced drucrafter, living alone and scratching out a living as best he can in modern day London since his father disappeared three years earlier. Drucraft (magic) involves working with essentia and creating sigls which act like spells powered by the wielder's will. This is set against warring magical factions within magica\l families and unbeknownst to him, Stephen is an Ashford. Unfortunately he has huge gaps in his knowledge of the magical world, and this leads him to cross a couple of the younger Ashfords who begin a vicious feud. The book is a series of lessons and discoveries as Stephen struggles to strengthen his drucraft so that next time the Ashfords hit him, he won't be helpless. I enjoyed this though not having seen the word sigl in writing I thought 6the narrator was mispronouncing 'sigil'. It turns out that instead of 'si-jil' the word sigl rhymes with giggle. Which is a pity because it really niggled. (See what I did there?) Anyhow, the first book came to a reasonable stopping point, if not quite an ending, so I'm already listening to the second.