I thoroughly enjoyed this story. I love that BR Kingsolver jumps right into the story and completes the world building while telling the story to keep the pace moving.
I love Kaitlyn's character, she understands the plight that the homeless children face and the things they have to endure to stay alive. Kaitlyn uses this understanding to help them survive and show them empathy.
I can't wait to read the second book in the Spirit Mage's Journey series, when it has been written and published.

Arielle DeLisle did a great job narrating this story and I hope they will narrate the rest of the series.

📖 Bookish Thoughts
This one was a miss for me. The biggest issue was the main character’s age, she’s supposed to be 16, but it's just not believeable. She’s treated like an elite, hyper competent agent solving cases that grown adults can’t handle, and it just didn’t track. The adults constantly praised her intelligence, and her responses were things like, “I really love the library and learning.” For context, she has been homeless for the last couple of years and hasn’t been in school…

On top of that, she was sexualized a lot throughout the book, which made for a very uncomfortable reading experience.

The writing leaned heavily on telling rather than showing, and a lot of plot points just didn’t make sense. Also, the audiobook narration felt flat and read more like a script than a performance.

This could have been semi decent if the FMC was an appropriate age.

✨ What to Expect
• Demon hunting
• Spirit magic
• Rogue summoners
• Lone wolf FMC
• Urban fantasy worldbuilding

🎧 Audio Score: 2.5 stars
🎙️ Narration Style: Solo
📅 Pub Date: July 15, 2025
Thank you to RBmedia and NetGalley for the advanced listening copy. All thoughts are my own.

I was able to listen to this as an audio.
I enjoyed this one as a young adult book that highlights some issues in the real world, even though this world is magical with mages and witches and vampires and werewolves and other supernatural.
Our FMC lost her parents and was left on her own for two years before the magic school system that she should’ve been going to find her. She had been working with him for a while and just kind of sliding under the radar of them. It does end in a happily ever after And is a series.

Ignore the cover -- the story is FANTASTIC!

Despite having a 16yo protagonist, the story is for adults. CW, there is a lot of discussion about the realities of teen homelessness, including mentions of underage sex workers, living with a pedophile as the alternative to living on the street, substance use, etc. It's not just there for shock value, and it's empathetically written, so it didn't bother me, but I know it won't be for everyone.

The worldbuilding is really cool, magic users and magical humanoids are long lived, and that impacts the story. If you want to know something about a hundred years ago, you can find someone and ask. If you want to know why two people are mad at each other, you might have to go back pretty far to find out.

It took me a while to get into the story, but by the end of the book I was itching for the second! It can't come soon enough.

Thanks to NetGalley for the free copy, all opinions are my own.

4.5 Stars

This was my surprise book of the week this week. This was an audio ARC of a brand-new series that centered around a 16 year old girl -Kaitlyn Dunne. Kaitlyn's parents were mages and were killed by vampires when she was 14 years old and she has been surviving on her own ever since. She has magical abilities, but she has not been guild trained and is kind of "winging it" as she uses her tracking abilities and magic skills to pick up bounties offered by the mage guild.

The world is a world of magic with mages, vampires, witches, and of course...demons. She finally comes to the attention of someone important at the Guild and they realize that she is EXTREMELY talented and is a unique and very rare Spirit Mage. All of this occurs at the same time that there are some crazy happenings at the Mage Guild.

A rogue demon summoner is on the loose and with her skills, Kaitlyn ends up being thrown into the deep end of the pool in the search for the summoner. There is nonstop action and drama as we follow her on her journey discovering just what exactly she is capable of doing.

The audio narration was perfectly done as the narrator -Arielle DeLisle- came across wonderfully well as the voice of a teen. This was a really quick and easy listen that flowed easily and kept your interest throughout the entire book. I am definitely interested in continuing with this series when the next book comes out.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tantor Audio for the opportunity to listen to and review this audio ARC. This book will be out for publication on July 15, 2025.

<b>Gripping Start to a Promising Series</b>

This is my first introduction to the author and it is an excellent and compelling beginning to the series! The story dives straight into a dark and dangerous world, with a heroine who’s had no choice but to grow up far too quickly.

It’s heartbreaking to see that after losing her parents, Katy is abandoned by the rest of her family at just 14. She was left to survive on her own. Now at 16, she works as a tracker, tackling dangerous, adult-level jobs in a brutal world.

There’s a deeply unsettling element to how older men view her, especially when the story reminds me of how young she still is. But she knows the risks, and she faces them with her head held high.
W
hile the main character is a teenager, this book didn’t feel like a typical young adult story. The tone is darker, the stakes feel real, and the emotional weight is heavy. Katy is independent and resilient, but she’s also inexperienced in a way—both in terms of her magical abilities and her understanding of the supernatural world she’s navigating. That balance between competence and vulnerability makes the story compelling.

The narration is another highlight. The narrator's voice is engaging and easy to listen to, with excellent differentiation between characters, bringing the cast to life in a way that enhances the story.

The plot is fast-paced, and while it incorporates familiar urban fantasy elements, the execution feels fresh and original. There's a sense of danger and unpredictability that keeps the tension high throughout. I’m eager to see where Katy’s journey leads her next.

I devoured this book in a day! I have really loved some of this author's other series especially the Rosie O'Grady series. While this one didn't quite live up to that one mainly because the main character was so young and it emphasized just how creepy our society can be towards young kids without options in life the start to this series left me wanting more. I want to know everything about spirit mages, and I can't wait for Katy to bloom into who she was always meant to be with her newfound family.

Calling all Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans! Meet Katy - a mage/tracker/bounty hunter. Note that although our FMC is 16, this book definitely is written for a mature audience. It is action packed and though there is no “on screen” sexual content, there are references to sexual violence and pedophiles.

⚔️Our MC has been homeless at various points in her backstory, so these issues do align with the harsh realities a homeless teen may face. Other issues such as food scarcity are covered as well.

⚔️Overall, I’d suggest a review of the content warnings to see if this book is for you. There was enough magical content, mystery, twists and turns to the plot to keep my attention. Katy’s adventures included finding a missing girl, tracking rogue vampires as well as tracking a demon summoner.

⚔️The narrator was phenomenal and did a great job at keeping the story engaging.

⚔️I’d score this as a 3.5/5 listen for me. I don’t think this subject matter and content was a fit for me, but may be a book others would enjoy. It has high marks on Goodreads as of the writing of this review.

⚔️I am thankful to NetGalley, Tantor Audio and author BR Kingsolver for the opportunity to listen to an advanced copy of this AudioBook. All opinions are my own.

⚔️Audiobook Release Date = July 15, 2025

(Advance Listening Copy (ALC) courtesy of NetGalley and Tantor Audio.)

Rating: 3.5⭐

Although this is a book about a teen MC, it is written for adults. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with this approach, but it does come with challenges. This one struggled to strike the right balance with its formerly-unhoused, sixteen-year-old MC.

On the one hand, the author clearly did research into the experiences of homeless youth. You can see genuine care in the narrative. For example, the main character struggles to set aside habits developed when she was on the streets, even after finding a secure housing situation and adults who show her care. This feels very true to those experiences.

However, where the book faltered for me was in how often the narrative circled back to sex. The MC constantly thought about how hot everyone was, how everyone who met her wanted to sleep with her, how everyone wanted to sleep with her *fourteen-year-old* friend. Even though there was no on-page sex in this book, the constant return to sex was <b>a lot</b> to get through.

That said, the plot itself is solid. The beats landed well, and I was invested in where the story was going. Loved the smart subversion of certain tropes, such as a nearby magical school that the main character didn’t end up attending. That's a first for me.

The world-building shows promise, and I’m curious to see how things evolve in future installments.

🎧 AUDIO-SPECIFIC:
The narration was solid throughout. Nothing in particular stood out, but that’s not a negative. In fact, I prefer it when a narrator carries the story effortlessly without calling attention to themselves. This was one of those performances: smooth, well-paced, and easy to stay with.

TL;DR:
A teen protagonist in a gritty adult fantasy, with plot development but some uncomfortable tonal moments along the way. I’ll be continuing the series, but with an eye on how it handles its themes in the future.