Kim Harrison's Madison Avery Trilogy- Audiobook Review

I have just finished listening to the Madison Avery trilogy back to back on audiobook, narrated by Mandy Seigfried. My rating is 3 out of 5 stars.



Madison Avery is your average, rebellious 17 year old. She just also happens to be dead. How she got that way is explained in the prequel Madison Avery and the Dim Reaper contained in Prom Nights from Hell I seriously recommend you read this first. I didn't, and although the back story is *eventually* explained, it's pretty disjointed and fairly annoying not to know what's going on.

Madison died in a car accident set up by a 'dark reaper'. Reapers are either Light or Dark, and are a type of angel. Dark Reapers are sent to collect souls of teenagers who are going to make bad choices that tarnish their souls. Light Reapers try to get there first and provide the 'mark' with a guardian angel. Once they have a guardian angel, the Dark Reaper can't touch them and they will live until their natural death.

Madison was part of a reap gone awry, when she managed to steal the reaper's amulet and it kept her soul bound to earth. So, although she's dead, the amulet gives the illusion of a body and she can continue an almost normal life inbetween dodging dark reapers. Barnabas is her friend, and the Light Reaper who was sent to save her. Over the course of the series, the way we view Light and Dark changes with the main themes being fate, choice and the ability of humans to change their destiny.

Madison soon learns that she was not just a 'mark', but the victim of a nefarious plot to prevent her from her true destiny- becoming the Dark Timekeeper (the Dark Reapers' boss. Over the course of the series, she starts to come to terms with this and learns more about her powers, and her ability to change the current system for the better.

The series is YA, and is a quick, fun listen/read. I enjoyed the stories, and the world building was adequate although not as detailed as I would have liked. Madison is perhaps not the most likeable heroine at first, but I did warm to her quite quickly.

My absolute biggest pet peeve with this series was the continued and, quite frankly, disturbing overuse of the word 'puppy' as an alternative swear word- e.g. 'Puppy presents on the rug', 'son of a puppy' etc. Every time it was used I cringed.

Other than that, the books were interesting enough to keep my attention and it was nice to hear a story about something a little bit different to weres, vamps and fey. If you are a fan of YA paranormal series, I would certainly recommend them.