"What darkness within the Labyrinth awaits?"
After defeating the Shadow King and opening the gateway to the mysterious Labyrinth of Onizoso, Reece's hopes are dashed when a surprise attack leaves his girlfriend's life hanging in the balance.
To save her, Reece and his friends must enter the labyrinth in hopes of finding the one person who may be able to bring her back to life...but in a place where players turn into Shard Wraiths, their hopes may already be lost.
Now Reece will have to navigate a strange new world fraught with dangers, while fending off a pursuing army and racing against the clock. And with his arch nemesis lurking just outside, the labyrinth might be only the start of his troubles.
To protect the ones he loves, Reece will have to challenge both his fears and principles, or risk losing everything and becoming a Shard Wraith himself.
But the Labyrinth holds many dark secrets and what he discovers within, may not only change the outcome of their mission, but redefine the very nature of the game world itself...
My Opinion: 439 pages, $4.99, Available on Kindle Unlimited
A good third book in the series, it has all the action and adventure that fans love and expect. However, you can tell the series is heading towards a conclusion because there are finally some good resolutions of some series conflicts, including emotional, political, and physical stuff. There are also some good callbacks to stuff from book 1 that I'd honestly forgotten about, that I feel like the author is trying to make sure gets tied up too.
Storywise, a good portion of the novel focuses on following through with the labyrinth storyline and finding someone to resurrect their fallen friend. But the story isn’t there the entire time, there is still the real world story with community the main character (MC) came from trying to decide what to do about their diminishing resources and hints at some political infighting.
Game mechanic wise, there are a couple wand wavy moments where the MC should have died, but he Neo’d (from the matrix) his way out of things. While this lessened my enjoyment of the novel a little, it’s still a good story and for the most part follows the rules it’s established.
Score: 7.5 out of 10