Tales from the Circle

Firebrand Book 2: The Fire-Touched is an excellent follow-up to the first book. It continues the story of Martel as he completes his first year at the Lyceum, hoping that by the end of it, he'll finally pass the novice stage and become an acolyte like the others his age. As this is the second book Martel has become more comfortable at the school and with the surrounding city and I also enjoyed sinking comfortably back into this well-built world with Martel. I enjoyed this second installment almost more than I did the first.  Martel's characterization is consistent with the first one, and he continues to get himself into tough situations and put himself into danger to help others, but by now he has his feet under him a bit more and is better able to handle the situations he gets into - and pick out friends from foes from people who are trying to use him. There's lots of great character work not only for Martel, but also some of the side-characters.  In terms of his magical e...

Time to Play (Apocalypse Parenting Book 1) is a LitRPG book about a mother thrust into an apocalyptic game-like situation with her three kids. One minute she's worrying about driving them to their sports lessons and the next minute the electricity stops working and an announcement informs her - and everyone else - that earth has just become the site of some alien game-show and they're now the unwilling contestants in this game. It's such an excellent premise with some great characterization that grounds it and makes it very, very real. I flew through this book in about two days because it was such a page-turner. One of the main draws that kept me turning the pages is the main character Meghan's realistic struggles and reactions as a mother of three. In a way, it's a book where monsters suddenly spawn and the characters can collect points and have to figure out how to survive, but it's also really just a book about the struggles of parenting, because it's not...

    Cinnamon Bun by Ravens Dagger is described as "A Wholesome LitRPG" and that's really what it is. I don't think I've read any other LitRPG, but I found it a good introduction to the genre, so don't be afraid of that subtitle if you've never tried the genre or aren't much of a gamer. It's basically an adventure story where a young girl (high schooler, I think) is sitting in class when a little magical message pops up in front of her inviting her to accept a mission to purge the world of a great evil. When she accepts, she is transported to a different world, a fantasy videogame world.  She explores the world, excited for adventure, and discovers that she can gain skills (like you would in a videogame). But instead of being a warrior or mage or something her "class" is Cinnamon Bun and she gets skills like cleaning and friend-making. She also definitely doesn't want to kill anything, and I love the way that her morals were incorporat...