Spirited: A Reverse Harem Fantasy Romance (The Academy of Spirits and Shadows)

Loved this book . There was so much to like . I can't wait to read book 2. But was wondering when book 3 is coming out.

Brynn of Haversey is a spirit whisperer. She has the ability to see and speak to the dead, she can send them to the afterlife. Brynn is a beautiful, curvy small half-breed angel with wings twice her size causing her to be a walking accident. Two left feet doesn't begin to describe her endearing clumsiness. She's an average whisperer who has applied to the prestigious Royal College each year since she reached the age to attend. Each year she has been turned down and this is her last chance. After banishing 2 nasty spirits and retrieving the ghost of a former whisperer on a personal mission for the Queen, Brynn now has her admittance. However, it didn't come as expected. She will be attending with her handler, Jasinda and 3 ghosts who have attached themselves to her. Her lifelong best friend and crush, Crown Prince Air, his cousin the former whisperer Elijah, and a palace thief who holds the Queen's secrets, Talon. Once at the College, Brynn picks up 2 more ghosts. She has also caught the attention of a Traveller's Guild Master, a Griffin, Vexer. While attending classes as a first-year Brynn has a secret assignment directly from the Queen. She is to successfully cast a resurrection spell. Originally, it was to bring back the Queen's family, which now includes the Crown Prince, but also includes Brynn's "boyfriends". To further complicate her crazy life she now knows that she received two blessings, not one from the gods. She has no idea how to use the second blessing and it puts a deadly target on her back.Imaginative. Creative. Unique. Amusing. Whimsical. Sexy. Touching. Heartfelt. Exceptional. These are only a few of the adjectives I can use to describe this new series by CM Stunich. This is easily one of my favorite books by this author and since I love her work, this is truly saying something. The characters are fantastic. Brynn has so much potential. I love the tiny little, top-heavy whisperer. Each time she causes a mini-disaster I smile. I grew attached to her as quickly as the ghosts. Her capacity for love, her self-doubt, her heartbreak, her loyalty to Jas, her hatred for Felixa (me too), her amusement for dry jokes, and her desire for her men all resonated with me. I share her desperation to pull off the resurrection spell. Air, Eli, and Vex are delicious. I love the history Brynn and Air share even if I am not a fan of some of his behavior. Eli gives me the warm fuzzies. Everything about this arrogant man appeals to me. And Vex seems to be male/griffin perfection. I'm not sure how to feel about the others yet but they certainly make it interesting!Then ... Ship. Ship. Flubbing ship. The Ending. CM ranks among the elite as a Queen of Cliffhangers and this one actually made me lose a feather. I loved this book and am eagerly waiting for the next one.

I really loved this audiobook version of Spirited by CM Stunich! I think its my favorite of hers thus far, and thats saying something haha. I have heard these narrators before, even just on one of CM’s other series, and they improved on this one and I didnt want it to end. I am dying for book 2 to be on audio, but I will wait patiently....mostly 😉😅❤️About the story first off....I will be honest that this book took me a little bit to get sucked into. Not sure why, but even with the action packed beginning, it wasn’t until about 1/3 of the way through the story that I had a hard time putting the book/audiobook down. I really am falling for all these different characters and love the concept of ghosts and spirit whisperers. I already have read book 2 but I am rereading it now because of how amazing this audiobook was. So Brynn keeps getting more potential loves, more of them become ghosts unfortunately, and there is a lot of scheming going on that the group is unaware of. Everyone is going to have to come together to get the ingredients and to figure out how to make this spell work. I have to say I really fell for all the guys, except Trubble, Dire, and Spicer since they are more new, even though Trubble is totally BA and Dire’s fight and feelings at the end of the book pulled at all my heartstrings. I know I will love them even more after book 2 and really really hope book 3 happens this year. I need to know how the HEA happens!!!For the narration, like I said before, Kylie and Eric were on point. I will say something that could be improved upon that made me sometimes teeter between and 4 and a 5 stars were the pronunciations of some of the words. Like Air’s real name, the land they were living in, etc. Kylie would say it one way, then Eric would say it a different way. There were times Eric changed his pronunciation in the same chapter of a certain word haha. Things that could be found before production and it would have been perfect. I will definitely listen to any book these 2 narrators do. I couldn’t believe how awesome Eric made the different guy voices and you could tell who was who right away, especially Trubble and Talon. Amazon job!!Highly recommend this audiobook! Love, Love, Love 😍😍😍. My one concern is finally getting book 3 released. I am totally good with waiting because CM is brilliant and writes amazing stories. I just want book 2 on audio like NOW (haha I know, super greedy over here) and hope and cross my fingers we get the ending this year for the series. I NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS hahaha.

This concept. Oh my lanta. There are so many intricate complexities to it, but so far those have been written really well. Brynn has the potential to be one of the most powerful they have ever seen, but none of them realized this until she attached herself to Elijah. She is fiercely loyal, hardworking, a bleeding heart, and just wants fix the world. She puts those she loves and their needs above herself, which is a beautiful but devastating thing to do. I can’t wait to see her come more into her own self, her powers, and her start putting herself first.I have to say it, so far Vexer is my favorite. He is so alpha caveman but also tender loving towards her. He wants her to put herself and her wants above anything else and cherished her the way she deserves. Air and I have a rocky relationship. I understand he’s a prince who has to think of his power and his people, but the way he puts that before Brynn at first rubs me wrong. He is possessive of her but only shows his feelings once other men start to show interest in her. His ego also makes me want to flick him in the nose. I think he’s more of an jerk than Talon at this point. I’m hoping his character growth will allow him to rub me the right way and love the jerk. Elijah and Talon give me a good laugh and I’m still feeling them out. Dyre and his brother are a question for me, but I’m keeping my eye on those two.The world building could use a little work. There is this whole new world that has been created and I feel like I’m still bumbling around trying to figure it out. I’m hoping it gets clearer as the series moves forward.That cliff hanger. Dang you. I’m sending CM a bill for the heart attack she practically caused.

This book was a great start into something I desperately wanted to read until its conclusion.However seeing as there's been no update since 2018 its clear that this series has been abandoned and that infuriates me. This is something fanfic writers do not authors.If you are going to release multi book stories that you're selling for actual money rather than putting it up for free, then every book should be completed and ready for upload. Not something to be written as and when the mood takes you.Utterly disappointing, don't bother to get drawn into this world as there is unlikely to be a conclusion

Oh I guess it had to happen one day, that a C.M. Stunich book would come along that just didn’t hit the spot for me. I mean, it was good, but it just didn’t bowl me over in the way I’ve come to expect from a Stunich novel.Spirited features Brynn a spirit whisperer who is determined to make it into the Royal College, she’s also crazy mad in love with the Crown Prince, Air, her best friend since forever. As the book progresses, she meets various spirits who become attached to her, we don’t learn how this happens and she has no clue. All the spirits are male and they all fancy the britches off of her.She’s set on a mission which if she succeeds would mean she could bring the spirits back to life. This mission had me questioning whether these men liked her for genuine reasons or because of what they could potentially get out of her (yeah sue me, I’m a cynic).Despite my cynicsm I liked the guys, they had opposing personalities, that grated on each other in most cases. It made for funny conversations and some awkward moments. I also liked how only spirit whisperers could see the spirits unless they had a spirit charm meaning some odd moments happened when the spirits were around and those who couldn’t see them walked in on conversations/sat on them etc.The fight scenes were wonderful, fluid and graphic. Very reminiscent of some of the epic fantasy novels I read and I thoroughly enjoyed them. There is a lot of death in this book, and honestly as a fan of grimdark I’m never going to complain at lots of death!My issue though was with Brynn, I couldn’t warm to her, she’s head over heels in love with Air, this I have no issue with, and I’ve seen this trope in reverse harem before but the inclusion of additional men has worked really well regardles. But I just didn’t believe it here. She is so friggin’ obsessed with Air that I just didn’t buy it that she was attracted to anybody else. So when she did connect to other men in the group it just really annoyed me. The irony being I preferred some of those guys but I just felt they could do better than Brynn.I’m hoping that the story progressing in book two will help me get over this hurdle, I love Stunich’s writing and I’m always normally totally convinced by everything she wants us to believe in the story so I’m not going to give up on this story and have the next installment pre-ordered ready to dive back in.

CHARACTERS: 5 OUT OF 5PLOT: 5 OUT OF 5WORLD BUILDING: 4 OUT OF 5FLOW: 4.5 OUT OF 5OVERALL RATING: (ACTUAL) - 4.5 OUT OF 5The characters in this book were fun. I loved how the MC would not curse and how she got around that, some of the substitutes were really funny and in places I found myself laughing out loud. The guys were all uniquely different and it was nice to see how the MC played off them. The descriptives of the MC were great, the image of a beautiful girl with long white hair and a realistic body image.The plot was well thought out and pacing was consistent. I would like to have had more details about the gifts and the gods as well as the abilities and gifts they gave. Overall this is a great story, with brilliant characters and loads of hot guys (Vex my fave). One of the best RH I have read.

Good, well written, an interesting world as the backdrop to an interesting story. Disappointingly, the main character is much less confident than the blurb implies and what sounds like a book about inflitration and subtefuge is actually a much more mundane save-the-prince story, albiet with a world unique enough to keep it interesting. The main character also has a very strange habit of rambling about why she can't use swear words. After the first explanation I got why she can't, I also got why she was substituting words in other character's speech. What I didn't understand was why she was explaining almost every single time it happened and, trust me, it happened a lot. Given the main character is a bit ditzy, this is largely forgivable but it did go over the line between "this is the character's nature" and "I think my readers are dumb".

If you've never read a C. M. STUNICH book... Firstly, where have you been? Second, this is a damn good one to get you started with. Third, you have some serious catching up to do cause this lady got game and her back catalogue is extensive. Don't even think about it. If she's written it, read it.