Bringer of Dust

The Talents, Book 2

By: J. M. Miro

Narrated by: Ben Onwukwe

"Ben Onwukwe deeply engages the listening audience with this electrifying dark fantasy. The novel's impeccable attention to detail vividly comes alive through Onwukwe's tone and resonant timbre"—AudioFile on Ordinary Monsters

"A sprawling romp on audio."—Buzzfeed on Ordinary Monsters

In this highly anticipated second book in the Talents Trilogy, the world of the dead is closer than you think.

Agrigento, Sicily, 1883. With the orsine destroyed, Cairndale lies in ruins, and Marlowe has vanished. His only hope of rescue lies in a fabled second orsine—long-hidden, thought lost—which might not even exist.

But when a body is discovered in the shadow of Cairndale, a body wreathed in the corrupted dust of the drughr, Charlie and the Talents realize there is even more at stake than they'd feared. For a new drughr has arisen, ferocious, horned, seemingly able to move in their world at will—and it is not alone. A malevolent figure, known only as the Abbess, desires the dust for her own ends. And deep in the world of the dead, a terrible evil stirs—an evil that the corrupted dust just might hold the secret to reviving or destroying forever.

So the dark journey begun in Ordinary Monsters surges forward, from the sinister underworld of the London exiles, to the mysteries of a sunlit villa in nineteenth-century Sicily, to the deep catacombs hidden under Paris. Against bone witches, mud glyphics, and a house of twilight that exists in a netherworld all its own, the Talents must work together—if they are to have any hope of staving off the world of the dead and saving their long-lost friend.

A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books.

©2023 J. M. Miro (P)2023 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

"Miro has a gift for big twists grounded in sympathetic characters... Readers of epic and dark fantasy will enjoy the bloody, visceral magic and suspenseful twists here." —Booklist

"Daunting... Fans of the first book will not be disappointed." —Publishers Weekly

Almost

The narrator has a great voice in general, but his character voices are absolutely appalling. He has a way of making all the characters sound completely idiotic. His American and Cockney accents are so bad I’ve literally had to stop listening several times. He gives them these dopey or screechy tones and he makes poor Oscar, who is supposed to be Russian sound like a slow, stuttering moron.
It takes so much away from the story and turns these characters whom we would otherwise come to love into aggravating fools.
Why the producers allowed this is beyond me. Otherwise the story is pretty good, though there are inconsistencies in the plot between the first and second books that they just gloss over and then the author spends entirely too much time explaining stuff that makes no sense either way you look at it.

Characters

I really enjoyed this…finished it in a couple days. I am looking forward to the next book!

The sequel to Ordinary Monsters was excellent.

Loved this new book. Highly recommended. Darker & more twisted than the first. I love the character development and the addition of the new characters. Can’t wait until the next book comes out. I fear we will be waiting for awhile.

Great story with brilliant narration

Love this series and LOVE the narrator. A truly beautifully articulated world with fascinating characters and twists and turns.

Imaginative Plot

Both the narration and plot were top notch. One of the books I question how on earth did the author think of this, as I’m reading. More complex than book one. Also a little more dark and gruesome than book one. Like, too much for me personally. This book edged into horror, enough to keep me from reading any sequel.