Length: 9 hours 19 mins
Author: Drew Hayes
Narrator: Kirby Heyborne

So the journal of Fred the vampire accountant’s un-intentioned adventures continue…

I love this series, most of the main characters are so unassuming, and modest, yet they still manage to find themselves in interesting situations.

Story?

The story builds, as per usual on the previous book.  Please read by review for that here.

But essentially Fred led a rather boring life when he was alive, and then he got turned into a vampire, and complacent with his lot in life continued being the accountant, and just started making mild changes to ensure he could continue living his meek now, undead life.  These changes, such as opening his own accounting firm, as well as meeting up again with his old high school flame Krystal (who turns out to be an agent which governs para-human affairs), he ends up finding himself in a whole bunch of new and interesting adventures, for which each one he makes some new friends, placates potential foes, resolves situations and generally manages to explore more of this new para-human world around him.

Once again the book is written like a journal, and Undead and Taxes features 5 individual stories.
Although of course each one leads on/ facilitates the rest.

They are:
-An accountant in the warehouse
– In which Fred has attained his ‘Certified Public Para-human Accountant’ license and is trying to establish himself as the go-to guy in his area for para-humans that need such additional services like para-human tax advantages.  His 1st client is Richard, mayor of the Therians (were-creatures).  It just so happens that Richard is an involuntary participant in a potential leadership challenge for which Fred gets himself caught in, as he’s on premise at the time.
-An agent at the convention
– In which Fred & Krystal attend Calcu-Con, a convention for para-humans and we learn about the weapons of destiny.
-A sword in the catacombs
– In which the gang accompanies Albert which has to go to an Agent certified secure location testing for a new situation that has come up.
-A lawyer in the manor
– Where Fred is competing for a large new accounting (non para-human) contract and ends up adding a new para-human contract instead.
-A dragon in the office
– The gang attends a celebration held by the mayor of the Therians to celebrate a peaceful transition of the joining of 2 clans, but not all is right with all the guests and it falls to Fred to help solve the mystery.

All of these are fantastic and some of the quotes are amazing and or really funny, however I think my one complaint about this book is that while you hear the name of the titles, which helps distinguish what is what, the audible app / publisher has made 45 chapters from which none of them are marked.  It would be amazing if they could indeed mark them, and then it’d be easier to come back to re-listen whenever you want to.

Easter eggs, hidden gems?

In the chapter ‘A lawyer in the manor’, that the laws and customs that guide the para-normal world are published in plain sight in the game manual for ‘Swords, Spells & Stealth’ which is an obscure role-playing game.
The hidden gem or ‘Easter egg’, is that this is actually another one of Drew Hayes books, so it’s very interesting to see this kind of cross-over between the ‘real’ world’ which Fred the Vampire inhabits, and the game world which the characters from NPC’s live in.
Read about that book here.

Narration?

The narration continues to be amazing, I feel that Kirby Heyborne does a better job with the female characters this time, or perhaps I’ve just got used to it, but either ay I’ve slipped into acceptance for the voices, and I really appreciate them. Especially the voices of Gideon (the dragon) and Fred for which I can genuinely feel his true character through the voice.

Story telling?

Also, and I forgot to mention this but Drew Hayes’ story telling is amazing.  I absolutely love it, the characters are well crafted and the world in which they live is incredibly well thought out, which often challenges the common narrative of what paranormal beings are like.  Listening to many of these books from Drew Hayes has made me really wanting to learn how to write a book.  I think to get the process just right is amazing.  And Drew Hayes seems to have so much skill in doing exactly that.

Recommendation?

I would really recommend this book, and just as before the book ends just at the end of the 5th story, but there’s no set conclusion, which means you just want to continue exploring Fred’s world and his adventures, rather than having a normal conclusion, from which you normally rest from.

As mentioned in my review from the 1st book, after listening to that I immediately bought book 2 and 3.  If Drew Hayes was to write 7 books in this series, provided that they all lived up to the same great quality, I would buy all of them in advance to just keep listening to this amazing story.

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