Trader

I’ll admit, I went into *Trader* skeptical—body-swap stories can feel gimmicky, and urban fantasy sometimes leans too hard on whimsy. But de Lint flips the script by making the supernatural feel *incidental* to the real conflict: two men forced to reckon with the lives they’ve avoided living. Max’s quiet despair as he’s stuck in Johnny’s skin (complete with his terrible decisions and even worse credit score) is darkly funny, but it’s Johnny’s gleeful sabotage of Max’s orderly world that had me hooked. The story’s Ottawa setting isn’t just backdrop; it’s a character itself, from the grimy bars where deals go down to the eerie, half-hidden spaces where the Fair Folk lurk. De Lint’s worldbuilding is so lived-in that when a guitar starts singing on its own, it feels less like a plot device and more like the inevitable weirdness of a city that’s seen too much. Kate Reading’s performance is *exceptional*, but not flawless. Her Johnny is a revelation—all swagger and barely contained panic—but her Max occasionally veers *too* close to monotone in early chapters, which softens the contrast between the two leads. That said, her ability to voice the supporting cast (particularly the morally ambiguous Fionna, whose Irish lilt carries just the right edge of menace) elevates the audiobook beyond the page. The pacing stumbles slightly in the middle, when subplots about fairy politics threaten to overshadow the core conflict, but the final act’s convergence of magic, music, and sheer stubborn human willpower makes it worth the detour. If you love fantasy that’s more *dirt under the fingernails* than *shining knights*, or if you’ve ever wondered how far you’d go to undo a mistake you didn’t make, this is your audiobook. Just don’t blame me if you start side-eyeing every guitar you see afterward.