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The Last Magician  By  cover art

The Last Magician

By: Lisa Maxwell
Narrated by: Candace Thaxton
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Publisher's summary

From Unhooked author Lisa Maxwell comes a captivating new world filled with magic and deception, about a girl who must travel back in time to find a mysterious book that could save her future.

Stop the Magician.

Steal the book.

Save the future.

In modern-day New York, magic is all but extinct. The remaining few who have an affinity for magic - the Mageus - live in the shadows, hiding who they are. Any Mageus who enters Manhattan becomes trapped by the Brink, a dark energy barrier that confines them to the island. Crossing it means losing their power - and often their lives.

Esta is a talented thief, and she's been raised to steal magical artifacts from the sinister Order that created the Brink. With her innate ability to manipulate time, Esta can pilfer from the past, collecting these artifacts before the Order even realizes she's there. And all of Esta's training has been for one final job: traveling back to 1902 to steal an ancient book containing the secrets of the Order - and the Brink - before the Magician can destroy it and doom the Mageus to a hopeless future.

But Old New York is a dangerous world ruled by ruthless gangs and secret societies, a world where the very air crackles with magic. Nothing is as it seems, including the Magician himself. And for Esta to save her future, she may have to betray everyone in the past.

©2017 Lisa Maxwell (P)2017 Simon & Schuster Audio

What listeners say about The Last Magician

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Couldn't Finish

I've been an audible member for ten years. This is the first time I've ever written a review. I really enjoyed the story but couldn't finish because of the narrator. She does this thing where she starts "cycles" her volume and tone every minute at the strangest places that is just plain awful.

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29 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Just okay... weird narration.

I really wanted to love this book but I didn't, it just was ok. The narrator performance was very odd for me with way too many ill placed inflections. I found it distracting.

As for the story, all the interesting background elements I usually like are there. Magic, history, time travel, crime heists and diverse characters are all there, but it wasn't enough.

It opens strong with an introduction to Esta, a time manipulating thief and our protagonist, but midway through everything starts to drag. I found myself not caring much about Esta or what happened to anyone after a certain point.

The saving grace is that it does get better at the very end with a nice little turn, but the payoff wasn't big enough and the book could have been 25% shorter.

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21 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Bought this one for the reviews

The narrator became more tolerable over the course of the book. Her performance was a little to whispery/raspy for me. Not everyone in the early 20th sounded like a 3 pack a day smoker or "over worked" WOrking girl....(insert New York/Bronx accent) with a Betty hoop twist....

To think of it reminds me quit a bit of a 90's classic featuring a bunny, a very well endowed Jessica, and a detective.... and

The over all story...there was not a hold my attention moment until 3/4 thru the book. Maybe the next one will be better.

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9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Narrator RUINED this book.

Her voice sounds like a roller coaster. Up and down and up and down like she was trying to sing the book and failing miserably. I finally got through it. And I have to admit the obnoxious cadence eased up towards the end enough to pull me into the actual story. But I had to restart it about 6 times to get there.

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4 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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Faltered In the End

Would you listen to The Last Magician again? Why?

No, the ending of the book really decreases my desire to read the book again.

What did you like best about this story?

The description of the events and the characters are vivid but not overwrought.

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3 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Max Entertainment from Maxwell

This was a great story: it had elements of history, a con game, magic, twists and turns that kept me guessing who was gonna out perform whom, and a mild sense of romance ( which I am extremely glad about- Thank you Ms. Maxwell). I loved the coming together and the explanation of whose who and how it all ties together. I even enjoyed the ending, up to the last sentence. Ms. Maxwell has created another elaborate tale, in fantasy fiction and really brought to life 3-dimensional characters, the only thing I wish it had, was more depravity and darker characters. I mean really really dark characters. But , I tore through it ( and listened while doing laundry and the bathrooms) in one weekend !IT ROCKED !!

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2 people found this helpful

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    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

boring af

i tried to like this book and i was at chapter 8 before just giving up on it. no explanation of what was going on , and i couldn't care less about the caricatures. just a big waste of time

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

interesting

The story jumps around. The time travel got a little confusing. The Lady that read the story made you feel like you where on a rollercoaster. Her voice would go high at weird times and took away from the story.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
  • t
  • 11-17-23

Good and yet...

First off, I liked the premise of the book. The characters were -mostly - well drawn. Heart was likable and understandable. Esta? Well, while I liked her, I also found her tendency to do what she shouldn't to be a major problem. Yes, it sort of saved her in the end, but I hope she will begin to grow out of it in the next book.

I had the professor figured out by the time the spotlight shown on the bad guy, though I couldn't understand HOW he was him.

The main problem for the book was its pacing. It was so slow. I wish that had been handled better, because the story would go on and on, giving us the bits of info we needed and then we'd hit a HUGe finale-stye scene, only to realize there was still 10 hours left of audio, 5 hours, 2 hours... And the last two chapters, which were the actual excitement at the end? Weren't exciting all. The was disapointing.

The narrator's voice was good, though she didn't have a big range of voices. In fact, several of the characters tended to have their voices blended together quite often.

That said, I am probably going to go on to the next book because A: I want to know what's in store for Esta, Heart, & Loughlin. B: I hope the author gets better on her pacing.

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Knockoff Discovery of Witches

This book is incredibly boring and hard to get through. not only was it painful to listen to because the reader sounded like Marge Simpson most of the time, but the whole book is told in a series of very short chapters. They must be from 2-10pages max and it made the story feel disjointed and like I couldn't get to know any 1 character before we were moving on to progress the story. Most of the "twists" were easy to figure out (really? only changing 1-2letters of a characters name and expecting me to not notice?) and hard to read because they were awkward. And the supposed romance? I felt nothing between the 2 characters. I'm assuming in a way they were supposed be star-crossed lovers in an enemies to lovers plot, but really they felt like annoying 13yo who couldn't work together ona. group project. And the main character being able to travel through time? Someone should take her magic away because she's so stupid she doesn't know how time travel and the related logic should work even with the "smartest person teaching her all of this." She's so set in normal logic that most of the community about with time being linear thelat she can't grasp the extent of her powers and what she can do. EVEN ONLY 5 PAGES AFTER TELLING THE AUDIENCE THAT SHE CANT CHANGE THE FUTURE BY CHANGING THE PAST. She suddenly forgets ALL of that knowledge. I will not be continuing this series as all of these characters are too stupid and whiny to put up with.

Also, it's basically just a knockoff Discovery of a witches, but only following the Book of Line plot line and excluding other creatures. The author can't even come up with an original idea. Shame.

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