Three Meant to Be

Branches of Past and Future, Book 1

By: MN Bennet

Narrated by: Kirt Graves

Telepathic high school teacher Dorian prepares teen witches for professional casting—because going in unprepared is what killed one of his partners. But new state mandates on magical proficiency make it nearly impossible, and Dorian worries he can’t give his students the education they really need.

Seeking a distraction from work, Dorian kisses his still-living on-again off-again clairvoyant boyfriend, Milo. Instead of a distraction, Dorian glimpses Milo’s vague vision involving the murder of Caleb—one of Dorian’s new students. Already devastated by the loss of his partner, Dorian refuses to stand aside and let Caleb die. He searches for clues by delving into Caleb’s mind.

Rooting through Caleb’s memories alongside teaching classes leads Dorian to two more students: Caleb’s ex-best friend turned rival and the prodigy with connections to dangerous warlocks. However, each step further into his students’ minds forces Dorian to confront his deteriorating relationship with Milo.

After discovering a link involving illegal casting, Dorian resolves to work with Milo to prevent the impending vision. To succeed, Dorian will have to explore the potential of a future with Milo and find closure on their third partner, whose loss looms between them. But meddling with fate to save Caleb inadvertently draws the warlocks near, putting all his students in danger.

Dorian will have to risk his life and gamble his second chance with Milo to keep his students alive.

©2023 MN Bennet (P)2025 MN Bennet

So good!

Magic, second chance, old pain, a mystery, a big bad, and two generations of characters all woven into a finely crafted and most enjoyable story. I’m ready for more!

Mind blown! 🤯

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️- all the stars. This is one of the most interesting magical/ witch and warlocks story’s I have encountered.

First off - Kirt graves is absolutely stunning and I will always devour anything he narrates.

Second- I’m at a loss as to adequately describe how much I LOVED this book!

Dorian is the most prickly, soft hearted, emo out there. Aka Mr.Frosty 😉

Milo is funny but has the weight of the futures on his shoulders. All while battening grief at the loss of Finn and the Distance Dorian forces between them.

I love all the students and the different magics. And
The diversity!! Nothing turns out quite like it seems it will. All around just a fantastic listen. I can’t wait to read more of MN Bennet.

Just wow’

Ok I’ll guess I’ll start with Kirt Graves! This book is full of characters, like there are a lot of different personalities, voices, and emotions to convey and Kirt did them all so well! All of the students voices🤌. The aperitif tone of Dorian, perfection! I seriously loved his performance, such a great listen. Now let’s get to the story, this was such a SURPRISE. I love Mn Bennett books, but this one blew me away. Dorian poor sweet, grouchy, cig loving Dorian. My heart broke for him and I cried many times. The past with Finn and Milo mixing with his present, the memories, Finn coming back to help Dorian, the end 😭! It was so dang good, perfect easy to follow magic system, the cast of queer high schoolers, low spice, all the banter. The DANG ROOSTER! I wish book 2&3 were in audio already.

My hero academia fanfic?

So let me start by saying I didn't finish the book.Not because it was a bad book, but because it was not what I wanted. the reason why I say my hero academia, fanfic is because, well allow me to write a summary and you tell me if it's me hero academia, or this book.

A sleep-deprived, traumatized, long black haired teacher is broody. he is a homeroom teacher and a pretious top ranking school. All he wants to do is to make sure that he teaches his classmates.How to survive instead of the curriculum.
One of his first loves was killed right in front of him and then was developed in a black vortex. Years later, he has a strained relationship with his loud blonde haired past third. he lives with a bunch of cats and doesn't really take care of himself.
His classmates consist of a seemingly powerless nerdy boy with a wikipedia type knowledge on all of the teachers and other powerful people.And by powerful people, I mean people with powers. there is a spiky, explosive, angry boy who the seemingly powerless boy is afraid of because of a long history of bullying.There is a carefree, very friendly spiky, dude whose skin becomes hard and spiky.There is a loud mouth class clown and an insecure rich girl.
At this point I was like, there's too many connections, and it's just not what I wanted to read. So I didn't finish.

Great world building

It’s clear the author put a lot of time and thought into this book. There’s a large cast of characters, but they’re all fully developed and distinct, they all have growth and development as the story progresses.

I was hesitant with so many of the characters being kids, it seems like children in books are often overly bratty or just totally unrealistic. I’m happy to say that isn’t the case in this story, they’re all well written and serve a narrative purpose.

The world building and magic system are explained in a way that feels natural, you don’t have to sit through pages and pages of technical explanation. The love interest’s history is shown in memories and flashbacks, but it never feels forced or excessive. Overall, the author does an excellent job catching the reader up on everything, without ever feeling like “oh, this is the boring exposition”