Hex and the City by Nazri Noor

Narrated by John Solo

Even though he’s already got two unfinished series on the go, Nazri Noor is clearly not one to let the grass grow under his feet! Hex and the City is the first book in the new Stolen Hearts series, which introduces two new and engaging protagonists and an interesting magic system alongside the author’s trademark strong worldbuilding, snappy banter and clever plotting.

Leon Alcantara is the last in a long line of witches. He’s young, scrappy, brash and cocky, and has been living mostly by the seat of his pants since his mother died, moving from place to place (mostly around California) and making a (scratchy) living as a finder, someone who uses his talents to recover (or steal) items upon request. Most finders work for a particular Spider – or contractor – and try to keep under the radar of the Masques, the mysterious magical cops.

When the book begins, Leon is on a simple retrieval job. He’s been tasked with finding a red velveteen bag full of dust, and is carefully searching the house he’s been sent to when he realises he’s not alone. It’s not uncommon for more than one finder to be assigned to the same job, but Leon has never come across one while working – until now.

Maximilian Drake is all about routine, discipline and precision, and plans his finding jobs to the smallest detail – so the last thing he expects when he arrives at the house is to discover there’s another finder looking for the bag, too. Max can’t help but notice the guy’s cocksure charisma – and how attractive he is – but when he tries bluffing that he’s a member of the family come for a visit, Max isn’t buying; despite the flirtatiousness and swagger, there’s a potentially dangerous edge and a gleam in his eye that Max recognises as competition. Both of them want to find the bag and will do whatever it takes to get it; but as they finally realise where it must be, they’re stopped in their tracks at the sight of a strange, shadowy creature – an arcane underground ninja – with the bag in hand leaping from the window.

Needless to say, Leon and Max part on less than cordial terms and hope never to see each other again. Max is still furious at having all his plans screwed up by some cocky kid and annoyed at himself for liking that shit-eating grin and the twinkling eyes as they’d raked over him… but before he can think about it too much, he gets a message from the Jade Spider telling him about a magical anomaly downtown, and suggesting that maybe whoever is causing it is making use of the contents of the stolen bag. When Max arrives to check things out, it’s clear that whatever is going on is much more than just a simple anomaly – a collision of the natural and supernatural – and that he isn’t the only one who was warned about it. Leon is there, too – and to Max’s surprise (and not a small amount of displeasure) – suggests that maybe they should work together to try to find out what’s happening.

If you’ve listened to Nazri Noor’s other m/m fantasy series, you’ll know he likes an enemies-to-lovers romance, so it’s no surprise that there’s one here, too. Max and Leon are total opposites in both their outlook and approach – Max is disciplined, precise and organised, Leon is more of a pantser – and their magical styles and abilities are completely different but, as they slowly discover, complementary. There’s an instant spark of mutual attraction, and their chemistry crackles from the get-go, but the attraction is combined with an equal amount of irritation, which is what they both try to focus on. They very quickly work out how to push each other’s buttons and their banter is sharp and funny, and they start to get under each other’s skin, but as they get to know more about each other, that initial attraction turns from lust to genuine affection and protectiveness as they learn to trust each other and work together. And while we leave them in a good place at the end of the book with an HFN, there is clearly more of the road to travel – we learn that Max isn’t exactly who he appears to be, and there’s a major plot-point related to Leon that goes largely unexplored, and which I assume we’ll return to in future books – so their relationship feels well-paced given they’ve just met and are still in the early stages of figuring each other out.

The worldbuilding here is, once again, intricate and fascinating. In this world, ‘the normals’ have no idea of the existence of the supernatural, and the magic system is based around a variety of cultures and traditions. The author does a great job of drip feeding the information we need to build up a picture of the society he’s created – about its structure and the power struggles within it. We learn about the great magical dynasties, the underground network of the Spiders and the enigmatic Masques, and we meet Max’s friends Roscoe and Johnny, a “pair of savvy mages” who run Unholy Grounds, a kind of neutral-zone coffee/cocktail bar.

The storyline about the thief and the anomalies doesn’t reach a conclusion here, but Mr. Noor can always be relied upon to deliver an tense and exciting finale, and in this one, our heroes are literally caught up in a race against time.

Unlike the Arcane and Wild Hearts series (and, I believe, all Mr. Noor’s other books), the Stolen Hearts series is written in dual PoV, so we get to hear from both protagonists. I’m not quite sure that was necessary; Mr. Noor is more than talented enough to be able to make single PoV work, and I didn’t feel there was enough of a difference in Max and Leon’s voices – as written – to have made it necessary. But part of that might be because the characters aren’t always sufficiently differentiated in the performance.

I’ve listened to John Solo a few times and have given him some good grades, but I stopped listening to him a couple of years back, because while he does do some things very well, the things that bugged me about his performances – his tendency to over-exaggeration and odd phrasing – were irritating me more – not less – over time and I decided to quit while I was ahead. When Nazri Noor announced Mr. Solo would be narrating this series, I was disappointed – Greg Boudreaux and Zachary Johnson are really tough acts to follow, and John Solo just isn’t in the same league – and I wasn’t sure I’d be listening to this series. But I enjoy the author’s work and decided to give it a go – but as expected, the narration is a very mixed bag. When Mr. Solo speaks ‘normally’, he’s pleasant to listen to, but any hint of tension – whether it’s action or sexual – and out comes ‘movie-trailer-announcer-guy’ and it’s like nails down a blackboard. At these times – and sadly, there are many – everything is over-emphasised, proper phrasing goes out the window and Mr. Solo adds this weird kind of tremor/warble to his voice (it’s very much the Michael Dean School of Narrating – if you’ve listened to Mr. Dean, you’ll know what I mean). The pacing is fine and the secondary characters are clearly differentiated, with good female voices – but there are times where the two leads sound too alike so it’s hard to tell them apart without listening to the dialogue tags. As a whole, the narration isn’t terrible, and if you can hear past the things that bother me about Mr. Solo’s performances, then you’ll probably enjoy this one a lot more than I did – but I think I’ll be sticking to print for the rest of this series.

Mr. Solo’s quirks are just too intrusive to make story and performance feel like a cohesive whole, so although I enjoyed Hex and the City for the story, the narration was too distracting for me to be able to give it an outright thumbs up.

Caz

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