I borrowed an audio copy of Renee Joiner’s Cold Read through Hoopla.

His future is in her hands….

Tasia Jackson is a psychic working occasional cases with the police department and the rare one-off for an old friend at the FBI. Her real business is super-secret because even the government doesn’t know just how powerful and dangerous she is and what she can actually do. Her FBI friend Daniel Cordeiro probably has his suspicions, but he’s never voiced them until she gets a strange vision of him pleading for her help.

Daniel’s latest case is a run-of-the-mill missing persons, but it’s personal this time. It’s his missing person, his sister, and he’s desperate to beat the 48-hour clock imposed by her kidnapper. So, he goes it alone and gets himself in deep trouble. His hail-Mary hope is Tasia and the powers she is afraid to fully use. He can only pray she hears him when he calls….

Can Tasia tap into things she knows are better left alone in time to save innocent lives, or will her dangerous magic do them all more harm than good?

I wouldn’t say this was bad, just thin. There’s a plot, but there’s not much to it. There’s a world, but it’s not overly robust. There’s the bare bones of a romance, but it’s not particularly developed. There’s a mystery, but it’s not elaborate. I think this would have really benefited from an additional 100 pages and the extra meat that would have allowed the author to give the book.

I thought Kate Poels—the narrator—did a passable job. But the accents are pretty inconsistent. And lastly, I like the cover a lot (it’s what convinced me to pick the book up), but it doesn’t accurately represent the story. The heroine shepherds the life energies of the dead and has visions/prophetic dreams. She doesn’t read tarot cards or use any circle based or academic magic (as the books on the cover would suggest). I don’t suppose it’s a big deal, but it did lead me to expect something entirely different than what’s actually in the book.

All in all, I’d probably read another Joiner book, but she’s not making the favorites list based on this showing.