Charmingly Euphemistic

(Disclaimer: I will be beta reading a different book for this author.)

The good:  This book was a lot of fun to read.  It was exciting and suspenseful, and the bad guy was creepy and evil.

This is the beginning of a series, and it is a good setup: given that Griffin is a private detective and Whyborne has magical abilities the characters can solve paranormal mysteries as their relationship develops, so hopefully the need for artificial Big Misunderstandings will be mitigated.  

The secondary characters were good, and while there were few women, the two who got significant page time were great characters who I look forward to seeing again.  

I listened to the audiobook, and while I can't say the reader was a great narrator, he was great for this book.  He stumbled a bit here and there and put the emphasis on the wrong words, but he really brought Griffin and Whyborne to life.  

The just OK: I appreciated Christine, but she did feel a bit over the top.  As much as she was involved with the story, she needed more nuance to feel real.

The romance was not completely convincing.  I think Whyborne's extreme lack of confidence got in the way here.  The ingredients were all there, but I more believe that they love each other than I feel it.

There was a Big Misunderstanding.  It was much better handled than usual:

but I have an allergy to Big Misunderstandings, so it bothered me a little.

The not so good: Whyborne got really boring with his lack of self esteem.  I get why he would have self doubts, and it makes sense for them to intrude sometimes, but it was nearly continuous.  Even after 

Whyborne goes on and on about how inferior he is and how someone as perfect as Griffin could never be interested in a non entity such as his humble self.  I really hope this is toned down in the rest of this series.

Overall: I like this a lot and will definitely continue with the series, probably on audiobooks, since I liked the narrator so much.