Brightblade: The Morgan Detective Agency, Book 1
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Brightblade: The Morgan Detective Agency, Book 1 Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Michael Suttkus (Author), Heather Costa (Narrator), C. T. Phipps (Author),
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 61 ratings
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Psychic. Superhero. Spy. Detective. Bounty hunter. Ashley Morgan has been many things and failed at all of them. The 28-year old has her whole life ahead of her but has already resigned herself to working a dead-end job bringing in the debt-ridden supernatural criminals of New Detroit.

A chance encounter with the vampire sheriff reveals a secret that motivates her to change her life forever: Her long-missing brother Arthur is alive (in a manner of speaking).

Ashley sets out on a quest to not only find him but also deal with old lovers, treacherous criminals, a magic sword, and a quest to raise an ancient vampire from the dead.

Brightblade is set in the same world as the Red Room series, The Bright Falls Mysteries, and Straight Outta Fangton.

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  1. Listening Length
    6 hours and 27 minutes
  2. Author
    Michael Suttkus, see all
  3. Narrator
    Heather Costa
  4. Audible release date
    November 18, 2019
  5. Language
    English
  6. Publisher
    Crossroad Press
  7. ASIN
    B081K2KCGQ
  8. Version
    Unabridged
  9. Program Type
    Audiobook
  10. See all details
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Product details

Listening Length 6 hours and 27 minutes
Author Michael Suttkus, C. T. Phipps
Narrator Heather Costa
Whispersync for Voice Ready
Audible.com Release Date November 18, 2019
Publisher Crossroad Press
Program Type Audiobook
Version Unabridged
Language English
ASIN B081K2KCGQ
Best Sellers Rank #341,330 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals)
#4,436 in Urban Fantasy
#10,035 in Horror Fiction
#18,309 in Dark Fantasy

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
61 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

The Bookwyrm Speaks
5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent addition to a wider urban fantasy universe.
Reviewed in the United States on November 14, 2019
Verified Purchase
I have been a huge fan of the various books C.T. Phipps and Michael Suttkus have co-written. When I heard that Michael would be taking lead on a new series set in the United States of Monsters universe, I was ecstatic, and happily took an offered review copy. I can happily say that not only does it fit into the universe, but charts in own course, adding new layers to what they have been creating in other books in the universe.

PLOT SUMMARY

Ashley Morgan is a bounty hunter working with her partners at a bail bonds in New Detroit, which is where the vampires made their base of power after they came out into the open when they bailed out the government in the economic crash of 2008. With the vampires and other supernaturals gaining legal status, the Red Room, who policed the hidden supernatural world, find themselves out of a job. This leaves people like Morgan's family suddenly without support and at loose ends. In Morgan's case, she took her status as a Bright, which means she has mental abilities, and tried to become a costumed superhero. Having telekinesis and being an empath apparently weren't enough to get the job done, so she quit that.

Morgan's firm specializes by bailing out supernaturals. Unfortunately, when they skip bail, it means vanilla humans cant go get them. Its up to Morgan and her team to bring them back and collect. After the capture of a bail jumper goes sideways, the vampire sheriff shows up to take him into custody, in exchange for information about where Ashley's missing brother is. Planning on following up, Ashley has to take an artifact they were paid for a job to the supernatural's bank for deposit. Unfortunately, that's the exact moment three supernatural's decide to rob the bank for another artifact. This leads to a battle between Ashley and the three robbers, who manage to get away, with Ashley being injured.

Ashley wakes up in a strange room, feeling unusual. It turns out that she's at her brother's apartment over the club he owns. She also discovers that she almost died, and had to be saved with vampire blood from her brother, who is now a vampire, thus making her a dhampir. This is awful news to Ashley, who was raised to hate vampires. Ashley finds out the reason for the bank robbery, which was to get an artifact that can raise a dead vampire lord, who can use the wand to turn vampires human again, something the vampires will do anything to avoid. This leads Ashley and her brothers group into conflict with a powerful vampire family bent of gaining power, who will stop at nothing to gain it. It doesn't help that one of the main conspirators is one of Ashley's ex's, who apparently was even worse than she seemed. Ashley and crew must stop them before they bring about the end of the vampire nation, all while keeping Ashley from turning full vamp herself. Ashley needs all her abilities, both old and new, to survive until the end, with a lot of twists and turns along the way.

CHARACTERS AND WORLD BUILDING

Like anything having to do with Michael Suttkus and C.T. Phipps, characters are what drive the story. Ashley is such a well written character, strong, determined and vulnerable by turns. She has deep prejudices ingrained in her by growing up in the Red Room environment, but struggles to be honest and fair. Her hatred of vampires is so at odds with what her brother has become, and it's that conflict that helps driver her actions. Her bonding a mystical weapon also creates some funny moments, as she now has a rather loud "conscience" pushing her to do the right things. The other characters are also so much fun. From Arthur, Ashley's vampire brother, to Alex, her wizard ex, the secondary characters get so much care and development. they get fully fleshed out. The villain of the story actually has very little face time in the book, so doesn't get as much first hand attention, but is discussed at length throughout the book.

The world building is definitely sold. It expands upon the world created in Straight Outta Fangton, Esoterrorism and I Was a Teenage Weredeer. The fall of the Red Room is explained more in this one than the others, with some more of the ancillary work done there explained. New Detroit is expanded on past where its been shown before, really giving a look into the various territories the city is split into. It is definitely an expanded world ripe for future stories.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Any time you spin off a series with new characters, it has a chance of failing. Luckily, they took what worked with the other books in this universe, namely excellent characters, snappy dialogue and a fast paced plot and created a great addition to the universe. If you like any other books by these authors, you'll like this one. I think it has a lot of appeal for any fans of urban fantasy, and has lots of potential places to go.
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Jimmy ray
4.0 out of 5 stars Ashley Morgan vampire hunter
Reviewed in the United States on November 11, 2020
Verified Purchase
Ashley Morgan has been many things in her short life and currently is a supernatural bounty hunter in New Detroit. When Ashley finds out her brother is alive, she finds herself in a battle for survival in a bank. She wakes up in her brothers apartment only to discover he is now a vampire and he used his blood to save her life. After she gets over the fact that she is now a dhampir, she is informed that an artifact that can raise a long dead vampire lord who can use the artifact to turn vamps into humans again. The pace is quick and the action is swift as you follow Ashley and her brother along with his group of faithful as the fight for survival. Good characters who are well developed and a story that will grab your attention and keep you turning the pages to see what happens next. Check it out and let me know what you think.
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Crysta M
5.0 out of 5 stars A fantastic beginning to what I hope will be a lengthy series
Reviewed in the United States on November 14, 2019
Verified Purchase
I was ridiculously excited for this book and it was everything I was hoping for! Ashley makes for a wonderfully conflicted main character, and it was nice seeing a more human perspective to the United States of Monsters world. The similarities to Jessica Jones are mentioned in the intro, and it’s true, Ashley and Jessica have some things in common. But only with broad strokes comparisons in that they’re both PIs with a chip on their shoulder, and used to wear a costume in their past. It doesn’t take long getting to know Ashley to see that they are definitely different people.

The Teenage Weredeer and Straight Outta Fangton books aren’t required reading by any means for Brightblade, but having that background I think does help enrich the world and some of the supporting cast. I had read some, but not all, of the books in the other series and I did sometimes feel like there were some background pieces I wasn’t fully seeing, but nothing that hindered understanding what was happening in Brightblade. And it was wonderful to spend more time getting to know Alex in particular, one of my favorite characters (besides Jane of course) from the Weredeer books. There are some minor spoilers for each of the other series as it does take place after those books in the same world.

The lack of a romance subplot was appreciated, I don’t mind it sometimes, but it’s nice when it can just be a story about a woman kicking ass and not also about who she is or isn’t seeing. There’s a nice low key sex positive vibe, despite not much sex happening, which is also appreciated.

No spoilers but I thoroughly enjoyed the twists and at least one was a major surprise for me. In general I would say it’s what they call a “page turner”. It can be hard for me to find time to sit down and just read these days but I kept sneaking in a page or two when I could just because I really wanted to know what happened next and even if I only had a few minutes, I wanted those few minutes to be spent reading.

The humor is mostly snark and enjoyable geeky pop-culture jokes that had me frequently laughing as I went along, and as is often the case with C.T. Phipps and Michael Suttkus books, it also had me thinking about how the United States of Monsters world reflects our own. It’s not always the most flattering reflection, but it is one worth seeing and discussing. And doing so couched around the supernatural, and a wonderful story, is a great way to do it.
I’m already looking forward to book 2, and 3, and 4… and yeah, I can already tell it’s going to be a great series!

I eagerly received an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
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Top reviews from other countries

Euan Donald
3.0 out of 5 stars QUICK DRAW
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 18, 2019
Verified Purchase
Having read THE UNITED STATES OF MONSTERS series since STRAIGHT OUT OF FANGTON (and having followed C.T. Phipps for some years prior to the debut of The Vampire Stone), I have finally decided to go public with my Feelings for the series and (Fair Warning for personal bias), it should be noted in advance that Mr Phipps is a correspondent of long standing and a friend to boot.

The USM series as a whole is (depending on whether you follow the Sheriff of Fangtown or the Bright Falls Mysteries) variously a fine down-and-dirty look at the manipulations, depredations & other nightly business of a Vampire with an appetite for the power to DO something about all this Human suffering and the horrid suspicion that this path to power he has chosen will leave him a being completely indifferent to mere humanity long before he achieves that level of puissance OR a slightly more cheerful look at a small-town girl trying to balance a powerful, even spiritual attachment to her hometown against the fact that little hunk of Podunk happens to sit in a stretch of Michigan near-wilderness even more thick with occult horrors of the immaterium than it is with lycanthropes ... and those skin-changers are ranked DEEP in little old Bright Falls.

She also has to struggle with the fact her parents named this poor girl JANE DOE; given that she and most of her immediate family sometimes run on all fours as cervids* this challenges even the previously-unassailable Kanye West for the title of 'Most Shameless Dad Joke Immortalised as a Child's Name' (I remain personally offended that Mr West didn't have the nerve to name his son 'South West' to complete the set, but that's a subject for another time) and makes Miss Doe's consistent niceness in the teeth of ... well it's a long and hungry bestiary ... all the more remarkable.

(*I'm not actually sure which species of deer her Other Self falls into, but given Jane has antlers despite being a female of the species she could very well be a rein-deer ... BRIGHT FALLS CHRISTMAS SPECIAL anyone?).

Well now Ashley Morgan, currently operating as a slightly-psychic PI but formerly a costumed adventurer trying to be a superhero (with all the Good Luck & Success attending the average protagonist from WATCHMEN - comic, cinematic OR televisual) and who might well have had to forego her dreams of Superhero living in order to become the agent of a shadowy, rather more than criminal conspiracy of occasionally-occult super-spies devoted to its own advancement (and occasionally willing & always able to remember it's founding purpose as a bastion against the even more shady supernatural monstrosities lurking behind the mask of Humanity 1.0) if that conspiracy hadn't found itself suddenly jacklighted by its premier rivals' unprecedented decision to come out of the coffin (and found that, to say the least, the spotlight of Public Scrutiny did them no more favours than the average creature pitted against an unsporting huntsman).

As you, dear reader, might have been able to gather even from this brief precis CT Phipps doesn't believe in Happy Families when it comes to conjuring up a background for his protagonists (or at any rate Happy Families seldom stay cheerful for long); being an author with a keen awareness of what suits his own strengths as a writer, Ms. Morgan can only count herself lucky that the Morgan Family aren't quite the BIGGEST Villains in their particular setting (past or present).

She can also count herself lucky to be making a living, rather than working out the twists & turns of un-life but that's a different problem entirely ... for now.

Getting back to the actual novel it's fair to call this a solid introduction to THE UNITED STATES OF MONSTERS - strictly speaking this novel actually welds together two previously connected series of novels (those starring Sheriff Stone & Jane Doe) with the RED ROOM series that, until BRIGHTBLADE, was separate until itself (Derek Hawthorne, sometime super-spy mastermind and full-time protagonist of that series, remains missing in action - his current status presumably either bloodied, but unbowed or just plain dead), so it might well be the best introductory novel to this newly-minted whole.

As such, it's an extremely good thing that the novel itself holds up as an enjoyable adventure in its own right and introduces the key elements of the series (Skulduggery, The Supernatural and more Snark than the average Lewis Carrol poem) in their proper order; in all honesty the opening chapter feels a trifle too heavy with exposition more smoothly worked into the story elsewhere in the text, but otherwise the novel proceeds with a no-fuss pace of entertainment that remains extremely appealing and the occasional devious subversion of expectations to keep things interesting (no spoilers, but keep your eyes open somewhere between Chapter 1 & Chapter 14).

Throughout the novel one is carried, dragged and occasionally sent flying over the mean streets a world not wholly unlike our own, but obliged to deal with the only thing worse than Vampires ... their most obsessive fans; also bears, man-bats and a number of other stimulating challenges, but we all know that nothing quite horrifies the masses like the sort of Fan who just couldn't stop themselves a few letters shot of Fanatic!

On a more serious note, as of 16/12/2019 BRIGHTBLADE remains a novel that could have used sterner editing - a few passages in the text seem poorly phrased or are simply inelegant due to faults in construction that should have been picked out prior to publication rather than their inherent content; having said that the author has informed me that these are already being seen to and should be amended at some point in the near future.
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