Redemption Song: Daniel Faust, Book 2 (Unabridged‪)‬

*At my request, this audiobook was provided by the author, narrator, or publisher at no cost in exchange for an unbiased review.

Another of Daniel's friends is brutally murdered by Meadow Brand, the woman who's connected to Lauren Carmichael and likely after Daniel for thwarting her occult a few weeks ago. Then Daniel learns Prince Sitri forbids his lover from seeing him. It's a spiraling fall when Daniel agrees to take a job for Prince Sitri to gain his trust to be with Caitlin. The job... to kill a good priest. When Daniel visits the man, he ends up saving him just to fall into the mouth of the beast. Daniel has to work his magic to save himself, the priest, and keep his love if she wants him.

I enjoyed the first audio book in this series, and the same holds true for this one which is done by the same voice, Adam Verner. I am always thrilled when we get the small extras with voices, like giving a vibrating sound to voices and such. Adam adds these extras in for us to give us the feel and sound of what's described by Craig. I love the personality Adam puts into the words as he narrates. He is in the moment as the character and it comes through. He also voices each with different tones to match the feel of the character, male and female, along with slight accents when noted. I love how easily Adam converts to the different tones, personalities, and accents keeping the story in a smooth flow. Amazing work.

Craig has crafted this story with many items needling Daniel. Daniel has a rough start in this book as things start to spiral downward for him in life. He's determined to keep trying through, and that doesn't always work out. All these things working at Daniel are important and come together at the end, or Daniel uses them that way.

What are these items?
~ A dear friend is murdered by someone who's killed a friend before.

~ Daniel finds himself under the microscope of Special Agent Harmony Black from the FBI as she's investigating Nicky Agnelli and all connected to him in any type of operations. Nicky's not a friend, but turning any information on one of the biggest crime bosses over to the FBI wouldn't be healthy for Daniel. And there are ties Daniel has with Nicky that could not go well for Daniel if Nicky's caught.

~ Caitlin, Daniel's lover, is working to create a safe home for cambion refugees trying to get to Prince Sitri's borders. But, there are cambion's mixed in with different beliefs. Beliefs that they can be cured of their curse and harm others they see as 'spawn of evil'.

~ Daniel and Caitlin love each other. Then, stand before Prince Sitri to learn that he sees Daniel as an enemy. Caitlin is forbidden to consort with Daniel, unless he performs a service for Prince Sitri. Kill an innocent soul. If he refuses he could lose his love forever.

Craig goes for the big punches. He has no worries about blood and gore. When the 'bad guy' hits, they hit hard and ugly. We start off with a bloody death in chapter one and the tension rises from there. Even though Craig writes dark, the story doesn't come across heavy. Daniel's personality helps lift the story, along with Adam's voicing of his dry humor.

We pretty much get the lowdown on what's happening in this complicated world of demons and magic in the beginning. So much happening at one time and Daniel's connections are all seeing something different. But it creates a wonderful feeding bed for so many possibilities.

The connections between all the problems is so well done. They are connected yet happening on their own, thriving off the others to help their selves. But, anything involving demons can't be easy and they would play off others to get what they want. I'm always mesmerized at the well thought out actions and interactions in Craig's stories. Wow.

Craig draws me in, paying close attention to details as there is always something happening. Just when you think things can't get worse. It does. And keeps you wondering how Daniel's going to fix it all. With all that's happening to Daniel, Craig timed it perfect - right when I was starting to not like the down and out Daniel, it hit Daniel why he was on this path and there is new revived life to the story and Daniel. The Daniel that's always thinking and scheming to come out the other end is the Daniel I enjoy. We get him at the start and when he returns, the story feels to jump in excitement once again. So two amazing skips of heart as we take off!

Oh, I've enjoyed Craig's writing and creation here. I'm totally on to the series!

This book is still very Constantineish. Hopefully Craig Schaefer takes this as a compliment because I love, love, love Constantine! I also really enjoy listening to Daniel Faust get himself into trouble. He is so good at it!

Redemption Song is book two of the Daniel Faust series. I most definitely recommend that if you have not read the first, to read it. There is a lot in here and very little of it is a reminder of what happened in book one. The big thing being how Daniel and Caitlyn got together, just to name one.

In this, Sitri, Caitlyn’s boss, tells Daniel if he cannot kill an innocent priest, then he and Caitlyn will never see one another again. They both know that Daniel cannot do this and their entire relationship is based on this one decision.

Daniel, however, is crafty. He’s also a wizard. So, of course he is going to do everything he can to get out of killing the priest and keeping the woman he loves. It’s the WAY he does things that keeps the plot moving and me laughing!

The only thing that I cannot wrap my head around, and maybe this is me showing my true colors, but being in love with a demon seems a bit odd. I get that all people can be all types of things but Caitlyn is the epitome of a demon, although not quite a demon, she still does some stuff that the average person would be appalled at. Daniel is special, I’ll give him that, but something about their relationship just rubs me the wrong way. Maybe I do not totally trust her, even though she has not really done anything to warrant that distrust.

The one thing that I am in love with is this plot! It careened through the elements of the story creating hills and valleys and flips and turns that I did not see coming from a mile away. Fantastically well written and very well narrated.

I enjoyed Adam Verner in the first book and he has the perfect voice for Daniel Faust, and great accents for everyone else also. I love his Caitlyn accent. I was hoping he would narrate the entire series and he does. He sets the bar quite high and hit it yet again. The audio was very well done and kept me feeling like I was in this world of wizards, demons, and angels. Scary thought!

Audiobook provided for review by the author.

Please find this complete review and many others at my review blog

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