Pretty decent but not spectacular

There's a lot to like about these books. The characters are fairly well fleshed out. The narrative moves quickly and is interesting. The sci-fi/gamer references are a LOT more subtle than in, say, Ready Player One or many other books of the genre.

Unfortunately, as with most strong female characters the hunky male turns up very early on and by chapter 5 of book 1 has already, quite literally, swept her off her feet. This isn't like Owl and the Japanese Circus where the hunky super boyfriend solves everything. The main character is still very much the main character it just might hve been nice if she was more established in herself before the male lead entered the scene.

She thinks her best friend's mum just died but is imagining him with his clothes off with like an hour. Fortunately, after book one lines like "liquid desire raced from my mouth straight into my lady bits" were a bit less frequent as the books switched from romance driven to story driven.

There are bits like when the MC uses a white flag of truce to fake a surrender so she can get close to some guards and kill them. With Russia's current tactics in Ukraine this had a very not-cool vibe and it was annoying they were never called out on it.

The narrator pronounces some words strangely: Foci as fokki, Vice as vies; but overall did a decent job.

Would I recommend this book to anyone? No. To gamers/LitRPG fans/Mystical romance fans?Probably. Will I read the sequel? Maybe.

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Easy listening

Loved the story also the narrator was excellent realy enjoyed listening to all 3 books and hope there is going to be more to the series as I felt the first 3 we're a warm up. Well done annie.

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The books are too short

The characters are great, but the books are too short and leave you wanting more!

Can't wait to listen to the rest in the series.

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2 people found this helpful

An Gripping Start To This Urban Fantasy Series.

The Twenty-Sided Sorceress is now a completed series. I'd already read and enjoyed these books on my Kindle a few years ago. So I used this box set to remind myself of the stories before continuing with series.

I love Ms Bellett’s writing style. The way she builds her plots, the world her tales are set in, the characters she creates and the way she lets them evolve. For me to root for a female protagonist, she has to show certain personality traits. Most important of which are intelligence, resilience and gumption. Jade Crow has these as well as a humour that made me chuckle. However it was her insecurities that made her feel credible as a person. I loved watching her grow through these stories and know that there's more for her to learn in the books to come.

Folly Blaine is a new-to-me narrator. I felt that she encapsulated Jade's character with her performance and liked the pace she read these stories. However, I've listened to other narrators whose talents include character voices. Folly's performance lacked this, making many of the scenes filled with dialogue hard for me to follow.

The three books contained a different mystery or crime to solve which kept my Miss Marple mind engaged that Jade and her friends solved within each story. As with every great book written as part of an ongoing series, there are threads unresolved and questions unanswered. However, none of the books ended in a life-or-death cliffhanger. I really appreciated that.

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Simply Amazing !

I was thoroughly amazed how entertaining and well written book !

It is light reading , but well made story lines that catches your imagination and give you rich experience of Annie's world .

I read in previous comments how short the books are , which partly that is true , but this can what some readers looking for . Just to be clear , the novel is fully comprehensive in details and by no mean a superficial detailed novel .

I also thoroughly enjoyed the nerd's rich experience shown in the books ( from computer games through comic world and surprises mentioning Naruto's famous manga reference . Making this novel into a unique special piece of art and a small treasure .
Try the novel ! Don't miss out !

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A kick ass nerdy magical story.

I am glad this one was 3 books in one which was value for money as they are not that long. Folly Blaine did a lovely job of narrating the books.

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