The destruction of Edward’s hometown forces him and his family to flee and confront the difficulty of rebuilding their lives. On their travels, Edward works to overcome the challenge of reintegrating with his siblings and parents. They try to work together in search of a brighter future, all feel the strain of losing their home and livelihood. Edward is not the same boy as when he left home and must balance his hard-fought independence with his role as brother and son.
Despite optimism for the future and escaping the destruction of Azalon, a dark threat looms over the family’s hope of rebuilding. Edward’s skills continue to progress, but will it be enough to protect the family’s fragile beginnings? Overcoming his own fears and personal demons is the biggest challenge Edward must face as he chooses a future with his family, or one of an adventurer.
My Opinion: 190 pages, $5.99, Available On Kindle Unlimited
*It felt rushed after the good opening*
I thought book 1 in the series was great. It was smart, well paced, had characters I loved, and there was well earned RPG power progression. So, I looked forward to the 2nd book in the series and I really enjoyed the start of the story. It had good pacing, good world development, and I expected that to continue throughout the novel. But it doesn’t.
The story itself felt like it wanted to get through an outline quickly. The beginning is great, but about a quarter way through it starts to feel rushed as the MC goes out to adventure and time starts to get skipped as you follow the MC through adventures. Worse there’s some level jumping as the MC sort of lucks into big power jumps. The individual adventure’s aren’t bad, but they don’t seem to have a point to them. It’s very slice of life with a little forced plotting towards the end to create some last minute tension and resolve the thing with the lich once and for all.
On the RPG side, things are frustrating too. The ‘scribe’ aspect where the MC uses hard work to unravel other magical spells disappears entirely. Instead, it’s more of a level grind with the MC fighting and adventuring and using his level ups, and gaining of magical gear to grow more powerful. Most fights end up relying on his ‘stop’ and ‘slow’ and ‘bolt’ spells repetitively to win with only a few instances of intelligent use of abilities. Towards the end, because of the rushed storylines even that RPG progression disappears with the MC jumping multiple levels, 5-10 at a time, in summary scenes.
As a small side note, there are some semi-regular grammar and spelling issues. Small things that spell check wouldn’t catch. ‘Food’ instead of ‘Wood’, ‘Was was’, and small things like that. It didn’t really bother me, but I know it will drive some people crazy.
Overall, while I still enjoyed the story and burned through it in a single sitting. I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as book 1. After the great opening, it just felt like it rushed through a story meant to cover 3 or 4 more books.
Score: 7.2 out of 10