A lot happens in such a short book from a serial murderer/stalker to the discovery of a dead body to the vandalisation of beach huts on Brighton Beach. This story doesn’t feel rushed however, progressing swiftly but in a well-written manner. I did have the end twist guessed wrong but i enjoyed the actual ending a lot more.

I don’t know where to start with this review. The protagonist is disabled for all of twelve pages before she’s magically healed and grows several cup sizes because why? It feels like a cheap grab for a plot point purely for the sake of it given that it doesn’t really impact anything past the first half chapter. Then she’s intensely American and running, jumping, arse kicking despite the fact that if she’s learnt to move with intense scoliosis, then having it removed would require her to relearn how to move. For a book claiming to focus on French mythology, there’s precious little of it in this incredibly American reading fantasy set up. There’s a thin plaster of medieval fantasy kingdom over it but this book does nothing different to try and distinguish itself. It’s a female-led higher power structure but there’s only men in the army which is just copy-paste. The romance is lacklustre with the faux conflict being an engagement which isn’t a stopping point except for a few sentences. This could have been so much fun from the bare bones of it and it just was a huge let down in basically every aspect.

Thank you to the author and BookSirens for the ARC opportunity. Firstly, love a game system and this one was unique in plotting out the community links. It has an important message with the impact of community cohesion and support. However, my major gripe with this story is that everyone is entirely logical about everything. It’s billed as a cozy fantasy so I was expecting the conflict to be gentle or resolved completely, but because of this, all the characters wound up sounding the same. The plot also moves quickly and so it doesn’t linger on events once they’ve been ‘resolved’. There’s strong video game vibes reminding me of Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons and Stardew Valley where neighbour events are part of the gameplay, but the novel has a far wider scope which wound up making me enjoy the story less because of it. If it was just the initial introduction and the first major conflict but taken slowly and in more depth, that would have made a more intriguing story with room for expansion in the future. Jordan is an interesting protagonist to follow, I enjoyed reading from their perspective as they learnt more about their community. Maya as well provided a different viewpoint into the community, however I was confused on how long she’d been there as she says five years but has in-depth knowledge of previous exchanges behind what she would logically know. It was an educational read but not quite what I was expecting going in.

Thank you to the author and to BookSirens for making the ARC available. I haven’t read many LitRPG books but this was an enjoyable short read. John is, at first glance, a fairly standard kind of protagonist. However, his focus and dedication on making an impossible glass cannon build work made all the difference to the story progression. I was definitely on his side throughout the story. There are also moments of genuine humour in the book, shown through John’s interactions with his teammates, most notably: “A statement that says ‘I understand the true purpose of video games: making numbers go up as high as possible while ignoring trivial concerns like self-preservation.’” Only stat to focus on decreasing is the enemy HP down to zero, which I can fully get behind. All in all, it’s a fun read and I’ll definitely pick up more by this author.