I loved this continuation of the LitRPG adventures of Damon, Malina and Chester. The story had the perfect balance of humor, love, real life issues, danger, machinations, politics, supernatural elements, fighting, and morality. Damon lives in a world where everyone lives within the “system,” which includes skills, abilities, spells, classes, and essence. This book begins exactly where the last book ended – Damon, Malina and Chester have been transported as far away of Eslant, Damon’s hometown, without Kristan or Marco and are stuck on a rock in the middle of a monster infested lake. That’s just the beginning of their new adventure to grow stronger and try to locate Malina’s nemesis. Every time the small band gets out of one mess, another takes its place. The system continues to need to their help to remove the corruption. I love that Damon is a sweet, naive, messy, lucky, sarcastic, kind of dumb, and awkward man who regularly screws up which makes him a very likeable and relatable hero. The story includes what you’d expect from this genre – fighting, dangerous situations, supernatural creatures, evil entities, henchmen, loyal friends, tragic back stories, mystical coincidences, snark, and laughs. I will definitely keep reading the series to see what happens next with Damon, Chester, Melina, and all the new members of their party.
Ryan H Reid, Dorrie Sacks, and Jeff Hays did a phenomenal job narrating the story and characters into life with enough change of inflection, tone and cadence to voice multiple characters quite convincingly. This was one of the best narrations I have ever heard. Reading the story was great but listening to it raised the enjoyment to a whole other level.