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    Dead Man's Deal: The Asylum Tales
    Dead Man's Deal: The Asylum Tales
    Dead Man's Deal: The Asylum Tales
    Audiobook11 hours

    Dead Man's Deal: The Asylum Tales

    Written by Jocelynn Drake

    Narrated by Michael Urie

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Dead Man's Deal by Jocelynn Drake continues the dark and dangerous adventures of a magical tattoo artist begun in Angel's Ink.

    In a gritty urban fantasy world where elves, faeries, trolls, werewolves, and vampires swim free in a sea of humanity, sometimes you need an edge. Looking for a little love? Need some luck? Desperate for revenge? Gage can give you what you need. The most talented tattoo artist in town, he knows the right symbol and the right mix of ingredients and ink to achieve your heart's desire. One tattoo is all it takes. But remember, everything has its price.

    The wizards know Gage is using forbidden magic, and they intend to punish him for his  transgressions. Too bad if innocent humans and monsters—entire cities—get in the way. They will quell a nascent magical uprising and Gage will be the sacrifice they need. First, though, they have to find him.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateMay 7, 2013
    ISBN9780062263483
    Dead Man's Deal: The Asylum Tales
    Author

    Jocelynn Drake

    Jocelynn Drake is the New York Times bestselling author of the Dark Days series and lives in Florida. When not at her desk, she is most likely to be found playing video games, watching movies, or hanging with her family.

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    Reviews for Dead Man's Deal

    4/5

    46 ratings8 reviews

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    • 2/5
      My absolute favorite thing about this series is the idea that vampires are so OCD that you can distract them by tossing sunflowers on the floor. I wish the rest of the story had more of this kind of humor.

      One of the reasons I prefer to read urban fantasy by women is that I don't really want to hear about sexual urges from a man's POV, so I was curious to see what happened when a woman wrote a story from the POV of a main character who's a man. In some ways, Drake manages to do even more of the stuff I don't like to read about in stories written by men. I really don't want to hear about what a guy's dick is doing! Nor do I enjoy love stories that are basically based on what a guy's dick wants.

      I also don't understand why the witches and warlocks are so evil and violent, which makes some of the violence hard to take.

      The do like the idea of infusing tattoos with spells, but I'm not sure that's enough to make me want to listen to the next book in the series.
    • 5/5
      I loved this! Even though a lot of Gage's problems have been now solved, there's a whole other can of worms waiting for him!
    • 3/5
      This book was certainly better than the first book. I'm still not feeling the relationship between Gage and Trixie. There was a bit less going on in this book and that was my main gripe about Angel's Ink. I did enjoy Gage more as well since his character wasn't being pulled in a thousand different directions. I hope Bronx has more of a role in the next book. I felt like he and Trixie's character's were after thoughts with this installment.
    • 4/5
      Read/Listened for Fun (Kindle/Audible)Overall Rating: 4.50Story Rating: 4.25Character Rating: 4.75Audio Rating: 4.00 (not part of the overall rating)NOTE: I did originally get this from Edelweiss but did not download it in time for review. I purchased my own copies through Amazon/Audible.First Thought when Finished: Dead Man's Deal by Jocelynn Drake was excellent! This series is now on my must buy as released list!Story Thoughts: Oh Gage!You are the king of getting yourself tangled up in the most impossible situations. Granted you always do it because you want to protect those you love BUT man this time you got yourself tangled up in all sorts of madness. Dead Man's Deal is all about what would you do for the people you love! The fact is, Gage will do anything for them. There was tons of action, suspense, and moments of "oh crap". This series is shaping up to be one of my favorites!Character Thoughts: I love the characters of The Asylum Tales. Gabe, Bronx (wasn't enough of him), Trixie, Sofie, and Gideon. They are where Jocelynn Drake SHINES! You care about them! You root for them! You cry and scream at them! Overall you just want to become part of their world and hang out with them. I really do love them all! In Dead Man's Deal though it was Sofie who made my heart grow 10x!Audio Thoughts: Narrated by: Michael Urie /Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins I love Michael Urie's narration of Dead Man's Deal (with the exception of his voice for Trixie). He is spot on with Gage, Bronx, Sofie, and Gideon. His pacing is fantastic and the emotion is perfectly suited to the story. Trixie, the voice for her is just a little to over the top for my taste.Final Thoughts: I need the next one NOW!
    • 4/5
      Review courtesy of Dark Faerie TalesQuick & Dirty: Fast paced dark urban fantasy with multiple stories interweaving into one final surprising outcome.Opening Sentence: They were killing pixies.The Review:Gage Powell returns with a whole new set of troubles in Dead Man’s Deal. A dark elf has learned Gage’s secret and has been using him to do his dirty work, even forcing Gage into using his magic which he has been forbidden to use. If Gage uses his magic then his time as a free man is running out even though the witch assigned to Gage has known about Gage’s little magic indiscretions, he won’t turn Gage in unless he uses some powerful magic.The world that has been created in The Asylum Tales is quite dark and depressing. The witches/warlocks/mages or whatever they prefer to be called (there doesn’t seem to be a name that they prefer to go by, even the males associate themselves as witches or at least from what I can tell or maybe I just missed something…) dominate over everyone from their Ivory Towers. They are a law unto themselves but they will take out their anger on anyone without much backlash. If the wizards kill a human it’s not a problem but if a human kills one of them there will be a manhunt that doesn’t end until that person is tortured and killed (presumably with many bodies that have fallen during that search). They even kill everyone in a major mid-western city because they don’t want one person with a secret so huge to get out that they burn the entire city to the ground.Gage knows the secret and in order to save himself and everyone in Low Town from being destroyed he must make a deal that could potentially change his life forever. In the midst of all the chaos, Gage also wants to help lift a curse off of the elves in order for his girlfriend Trixie to be safe in case he doesn’t make it out of this “mission” alive.Gage is a tricky fellow and sadly not much seems to go his way. I enjoy very much how Jocelynn Drake just seems to keep adding to Gage’s stress factor every few pages and keeps it a mystery as to how he is going to get out of this mess with the least amount of collateral damage possible before the puzzle starts to slowly unravel one piece at a time. Gage could so easily use magic to solve all his problems but the one where the Ivory Towers comes after his hide is very much entertaining to see what he does to get around using magic. A huge factor in the story is how if a mage kills someone using magic they will lose a year off of their lives so Gage has to come up with some interesting ways to defeat his enemies.Dead Man’s Deal could be read as a standalone in the series. The ending of the first novel pretty much summarizes the position that Gage is in at the beginning of this novel. The only thing that readers would miss out on is the depth of the friendships that Gage has with Trixie and Bronx. They are in this novel but don’t really have much page time since a bulk of Gage’s problems are left a secret from the two of them and he has to work on his own. Although Gage does spend a lot of time with the mages Gideon and Sofie. I really enjoyed learning more about the background on those two mages. Overall, Dead Man’s Deal is a fast paced read because of all the action, so much kept happening and I couldn’t wait to find out what was next. If you like dark urban fantasy novels and a male lead character, I would highly recommend this series.Notable Scene:Widening my stance to keep my balance, I blanked my mind while shoving. down the nausea rising in my stomach. Adrenaline bubbled in my veins until it felt like my hair was standing on end. In a breath, I pulled up a swell of energy, and I slammed it into Greasy and Fox. I couldn’t manage all three at once. Greasy was a nuisance and Fox was dangerous. Brownie was somewhere in the middle.Narrowing my eyes, I could feel Brownie summoning up a shield, but it wouldn’t work. With only the smallest push, I directed the energy toward him but my only thought was of peeling an apple. I was vaguely aware of him jerking one arm sharply and twisting, looking around for whatever was attacking him. His face was a mask of confusion as he stubbornly held on to his magical barrier while straining to figure out what I was doing. A second later, his scream rang out, sending shards of glass cutting through my soul. His body twisted and writhed in pain. I tapped down the revulsion while my brain locked on the vision of a small paring knife sliding around a bright red apple as it cut away the skin in a single, long coil.With the spell in place, I turned to find Greasy staring in horror. He seemed to have forgotten about me. I lifted one hand and extended one finger, pointed down. I slowly spun it in place, imagining that I was stirring a cup of coffee. The warlock gave a surprised shout as he began to spin in place as well, but his shouts and flailing arms were quickly replaced with pain-filled shrieks.When I took the time to magically stir my coffee, I also heated it. I should have been feeling horror, revulsion. I should have been throwing up the contents of my stomach, but I felt detached and numb as I killed them. My mind desperately clung to the images of an apple and coffee because if I thought about what I was doing, I’d go mad.FTC Advisory: Harper Voyager/HarperCollins provided me with a copy of Dead Man’s Deal. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review.
    • 5/5
      This book is absolutely awesome! Dead Man's Deal is the second book in Joscelynn Drake's The Asylum Tales. The main character, Gage (a warlock in hiding) finds himself with a number of problems that he needs to resolve. Actions in the first book led to him and one of his tattooing partners, Bronx (a troll) being employed by the dark elf Mafia boss Reave. Reave wants the boys to handle some distasteful tasks so Gage is scrambling to figure a way out of the arrangement. To make matters worse, Reave has discovered a secret that the Ivory Towers, home to the world's brutal witches and warlocks, will kill to protect and he's dragged Gage's brother into the fray so Gage needs to save him, too. Gage also need to find a way to keep the Summer Court elves from stealing his girlfriend, Trixie, back to her homeland to be the consort of the king. If he can fix the elves' infertility problem that just might do the trick. Add to that the fact that he's been increasingly using magic, an act that can get him killed by the Tower powers, and I'd say our boy has his hands quite full. Drake spins what could be a really complicated and confusing number of threads into a seamless story that keeps you engaged from beginning to end. Gage is flawed and vulnerable; Drake does an amazing job of conveying his many conflicts and moral quandaries while he attempts to hold on tight to some shred of his humanity. The book has its share of violence and meaningless loss, but she infuses it with rich characters whose reactions make you feel their pain and suffering but also their joy and love. This series is quite different from Drake's Dark Days series but every bit as enjoyable. If you haven't read the first book (Angel's Ink) I'd start there in this highly recommended series.
    • 4/5
      I had hoped to get my hands on a copy of Angel's Ink before reading this, the next book in Drake's Asylum Tales series but I didn't quite manage it. Thankfully Dead Man's Deal worked surprisingly well as a stand alone and I gratefully escaped into a world of magic, monsters and mayhem.Dead Man's Deal features Gage Powell, a wizard who turned his back on his training in order to escape the horrifying politics of his fellow magic wielders in the Ivory Towers. He makes his living as a tattoo artist in Low Town whilst forced to submit to strict conditions laid down by the Towers upon the threat of execution. Gage works hard to keep his head down but when the ruling class hears rumours of a rebellion amongst the general population that even leveling an entire city doesn't quell, they are eager to blame Gage and now he, and everyone he cares about, is under threat unless he can survive long enough to strike a deal.In Drake's world, wizards and witches rule with sadistic impunity while humanity and other races suffer their whims. Children who exhibit magic skills, like Gage did, are forcibly removed from their parents with all further contact denied and are brought up amongst their own kind, apprenticed to mature wizards and witches. It's a competitive, cut throat environment which breeds arrogance, entitlement and casual viciousness and in Dead Man's Deal, Drake shares snippets of Gage's past to reveal the horror of his childhood.Gage's determination to overthrow his destiny is his prime motivator but not at the cost of another's life if he can avoid it. While Gage would like nothing more than to dismantle the Ivory Towers, in Dead Man's Deal he is forced to stop the rebellion led by the Dark Elf, knowing that his brethren will destroy everything to suppress the dissemination of the coordinates of their towers. As Gage tries to capture the Elf he also has to deal with Tower assassins, jealous fae and the surprise arrival of his long lost brother. It's a fast paced, action packed plot mired in magic and violence relieved by Drake's wicked sense of humour and his passionate romance with his girlfriend, Trixie, an elf.I really enjoyed Dead Man's Deal and Drake's creation of her gritty, unique world. Gage is a great hero with many admirable traits and he is supported by a cast of interesting characters and the story has may eager to know what happens next. This series is a must for fans of urban fantasy.
    • 5/5
      Our Review, by LITERAL ADDICTION's Pack Alpha - Michelle L. Olson:*eARC received from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest reviewJocelynn Drake delivers another mind blowing read with the 2nd installment of The Asylum Tales, and continues some of the most fantastic world building I have ever encountered!As the conflict between the Towers and the rest of the world escalates, Gage and his loved ones are once again caught up in the midst of the chaos. Per usual, loyal, selfless, protective, absolutely lovable Gage lays everything on the line to protect those he loves and the lives of the innocent. Jocelynn is so in tune with her leading man and writes so vividly, that as he fights tooth and nail and sacrifices just about anything & everything he can, you can't help but be caught up in the story and cheer him on, feeling as if you were right there with him. The tone and pacing of the plot were fantastic, and the arc of the story is evolving spectacularly. Amidst the magic and mayhem we get some delicious sneak peeks into what might be, as well as some delightful regressions into what was, all adding up to a fast paced, action packed Urban Fantasy that is also incredibly touching and full of heart.I am thoroughly obsessed with this unique and gripping series and highly recommend it! While Dead Man's Deal can be read as a stand-alone, I highly suggest reading the 2 prequel novellas and Angel's Ink beforehand. The added history and character development story you will gain will make Dead Man's Deal just that much more enjoyable (and that's saying a lot).LITERAL ADDICTION gives Dead Man's Deal a well earned 5 Skulls.