Warmaster 4: Sorrowvale by Melissa McShane

An Upstream Review

Hey Space Cadets, I hope this blog post finds you well. I am reviewing another new book instead of cleaning up recommendations previously posted on my website. This book is the fourth in the Warmaster series I found via a friend of mine, Jana S Brown. She introduced me to the author, and we interviewed her on The Blasters & Blades Podcast about this universe on YouTube, BitChute, Rumble and audio. It sounded amazing. I loved the concept, and I was suddenly curious about the GameLit genre. I was so hooked that when it came out, I instantly purchased and read book three!

So, here we are as I prepare to write a review on the novel Warmaster 4: Sorrowvale by Melissa McShane. I ‘read’ this novel in the audiobook format as read by Talon David. This narrator did a bang-up job with this one; it was just as good as the first three novels in this world that she narrated! I can’t wait to see what else the Talented Talon can accomplish in her voice acting career, because she has skills!

Overall, I am not surprised that I ended up loving a book genre that was spawned by the games that I’ve learned to love. I played online open-world RPGs like the Fallout and Elder Scrolls franchises and loved the open-world gaming concept. That transferred over to the TTRPGs once I found a game with friends. Now, I can experience that over and over again, even when solo, through this genre. I can’t wait to dive deeper into this literary space.

And let me tell you, as my fourth foray into this genre, this was a banger! I recently bought another LitRPG book because I’m having so much fun in this space. Again, I thank my lucky muse for showing me what I was missing. This series is a rare treat for me. If you want to see my thoughts on the previous novels, then read my first review here, the second review here and the third review here. There will be some overlap between these reviews as I am unsure how to review a sequel to a book I loved without repetition. Obviously, if I loved the second book, then it would have elements that made the first novel work.

Seriously, this author sold the entire genre of literature to me. As you can see, I am writing another review from this space! I know you can barely contain your excitement! But please don’t embarrass us in public; people are watching! They’re staring at us, don’t look, but that guy over there might even be filming. Let’s save those moments for beer, bars, and bratwurst!

Now let’s talk about that author. Melissa led a nomadic life and found books to be the only constant. Without the stability of a forever home as she moved following her parent’s employment, she sought refuge in the written word. This led her to attending college and majoring in English with a focus in literary criticism. Rather than hock fries at the Mister Slushy, she got hired to work in various libraries and used her skills to help the right readers find the right books. After being unable to find the right books for her, she decided to write it herself and the rest is, as they say, history.

Okay, so that is the author… but what is this book we’re discussing? Well, the Warmaster series is your basic isekai. Well, except that this one isn’t told from the point of view of the person yeeted into this strange new world. Nope, the point of view for this book series is the transported dude’s companion. That would be Aderyn, a super cool Warmaster. That’s her character class, since they live in a world run by the System. Said system is the game rules running in the background of everything. She’s of a class that everyone assumed was useless, but that’s because they never figured out the way it worked. Her class basically gives her preternatural combat leadership skills and the ability to assess a situation in seconds and formulate the best approach to solving what ails them.

(August 20^th, 2024)

The Story

Now, let’s talk about the story that brought us here! Just so we’re clear, I’m going to prove a spoiler free review for you today… here goes nothing!

The main character of this novel is Aderyn, a woman who grew up in a world that is basically a TTRPG game, except it is very real to the people who live there. After she gets the Call to become an adventurer, she is given a class, Warmaster, and she meets her friend Owen. He is the ying to her yang, and when their powers combine, they’re danged near unstoppable. This novel picks up where the third one leaves off and I loved every minute of it.

During this story arc, we see that Aderyn has finally grown into her character class. She embraced her role as tactician and embraced the challenge of practicing with her long sword. Working outside of her assigned skills, she fought through the struggles of perfecting her swordcraft skillset the hard way. Her determination was commendable, making her stand out in a world where most people leaned into their assigned classes. They relied on the skill sets provided by these classes to solve problems and didn’t seem to step out of those parameters.

But Aderyn is not complete without Owen, her partner in crime. In this novel they are the perfect combination of good cop, bad cop as their mission to escort Jessemia into the city of Guerdon Deep. While Owen is fed up with the spoiled young woman, Aderyn feels compassion for her. She truly believes that the young lady can rise above her rearin and be better than how she was raised. In fact, this back and forth between the more pragmatic Owen and the wistful dreamer Aderyn is a central focus of the novel. No spoilers, but it kept me guessing throughout the course of the book. Personally, I voted for dropkicking her out of the nearest airlock. Wait, wrong genre… pushing her into a well? Whatever, I didn’t like her character in the beginning.

The emotional toll of dealing with Jessemia forces the team of adventurers to perfect their abilities to work together, despite their patience being repeatedly tested. During the course of this journey, monsters were fought and levels were gained but the core of the story remained the same. They were trying to survive and solve the main quest of the level caps and Owen’s role as the Fated One. This all served to showcase the team based epic quest they were embarked upon. Like in the first three books, I loved seeing these characters figure out their new powers, apply them creatively and build their intra team dynamics.

While Aderyn and company expected to face monsters, bandits and the struggles of an eight-week trek across the continent, they were not ready for the final dungeon that gave this book its name… Sorrowvale. I don’t want to say too much about this dungeon because we don’t do spoilers here. But, lets just say that Wes Craven would’ve loved this dungeon. And that’s all I’m gonna say about that!

During the course of this book, we see Aderyn and Owen deepen their romantic connection to the point where fade-to-black scenes happened for them. Go Owen, rock on with your bad self. And the new twosome also deepened their friendship with the rest of their party members: Isold, Weston, and Livia. These companions are a lot of fun to see in this novel as they learn to combine their powers and skillsets in new and inventive ways. They combine powers, use magical artifacts in unique ways and then sometimes forget that they had power items… you know, just like real human beings who get stressed out in the moment!

While they’re officially known as an adventuring part, I think that the term found family or chosen family suits their partnership better. We got some of that in the first three books in this series, but it really shines through in Warmaster 4: Sorrowvale. Especially when everyone came together during the great bandit incident that can’t be spoken of because of spoilers! But, well, it was fun to see the dark underbelly of this world. This scene, more than any other, made the world feel more real and lived in. The age old ‘we fought the monsters, only to realize that humans were the monsters’ trope works for a reason. And boy did Melissa McShane rocked it in this novel!

This teamwork is an important trait for a group, since poor intra team dynamics can kill you during dangerous situations. This aspect of combat is often overlooked or poorly shown in modern media. Why? Because it is written by people who’ve lived soft, privileged lives protected from the cruel reality of the world outside of their bubbles. Having been part of a infantry squad (aka team) whose life depended on the actions of others, I notice when authors get this one wrong. Done right, it blends into the background. But, if you do it wrong, it shines like the Beacons of Gondor.

As a former grunt, or infantryman in civilian parlance, I also liked how Melissa described the combat scenarios. It was clearly written, and I could picture the conflict like a movie in my head. It felt like how it should happen, though I’m inexperienced in swordplay. To be fair, I’ve also never fought monsters or slung spells at the wee beasties. But, because Melissa got the little sensory details right, I was able to suspend my disbelief when she wrote the fantastical awesomeness.

Speaking of all of the combat, let’s talk about the evolution of fighting that happened in this book. In previous novels, we saw Aderyn’s adventuring party struggling during the combat evolutions. They had to come to terms with the fighting required of them as adventurers. Killing isn’t easy, even when it was only monsters. But ending the life of other humans, even vile bandits who attacked first, is another matter entirely. They struggled with that in the first three books, but now they’ve evolved past that. They’ve matured to the point that the group is mentoring another party of young adventurers. They’re teaching them the ways of the world and how to survive and thrive under the system that rules their lives.

Unlike some adventurers, Aderyn and company don’t hoard their knowledge. They share it freely, because they genuinely want the best for everyone. This works because they don’t let their pride, ego and vanity control their decisions. When compared against the backdrop of the rest of the adventuring world, this fact demonstrates the character of the group and of its individual members. It lets us, the reader, see how much they care for others. The author, Melissa McShane, did this in such a subtle way that you might not even notice if you weren’t overthinking things to write this review.

The quality of the character of Aderyn is also shown in how she treats the petulant brat Jessemia. The Warmaster treats her with compassion, as she understands how her father hamstrung her and made her a subpar adventurer. Worse, by giving her everything she ever wanted, he spoiled her to the point where it almost got her killed several times over. Despite all of that, Aderyn forgives the young lady, giving her the grace to grow into someone better. She taught the young Pathseer Jessemia that if she wanted to be better, she could. She just had to put in the work and grind like everyone else did.

After some digging into her other works, I realize that second chance arcs is a common theme found in several of her other books. I love that, I’m a firm believer in self-improvement, in myself and in other people. That that requires that we allow ourselves to move past our previous errors, so it is good to see others championing those ideas. I was thrilled to see this reminder about the positive effects compassion can have on those around you. How those little acts of kindness can change the world, one person at a time.

But you can’t discuss a GameLit/LitRPG story without talking about the system that underlines it. The story’s game reminds me of Pathfinder, but that could be me projecting because I’ve heard the author say that it’s her preferred gaming system. Either way, the system is logical, coherent, and internally consistent. The game’s challenges scale with the player or character, though this is done through map regions instead of from some Game Master creating the challenges. It was a mash up of the tabletop rpgs and the open world MMORPGs that first drew me in. It was compelling enough that I wanted to roll some dice in this setting.

The desire of the characters to improve themselves in the in-game system forces them to wander across the map in search of experience points. During the trek through book four, the party continued to learn about the game world, their sacred quest and to grow as people. But what was more important, we the readers got to explore the previously hinted at Fated One quest at a deeper level. It was a lot of fun, especially because Owen was no longer an outsider. Sure, he still inserts his earth-based words to confuse them, but he was still one of them. That meant that the party was on more equal footings as they learned what they would be required to do to tackle the system level caps. I really enjoyed this shift from the author, Melissa McShane. You can only ride the noob train entry point for so long before it is overdone.

This story was expertly paced, and the prose was cleanly written. There was never a moment in the novel where I couldn’t envision the world. I could see the adventure unfolding in my mind as a movie in my head. In fairness, I have read enough fantasy to help me envision everything. Even better, I had a solid base of knowledge from my gaming experience, both video and tabletop mediums. Further, having read a lot of the classics of fantasy literature, I’ve seen many of the genre tropes.

And how could we talk about a novel without talking about the authorial voice? In this novel, I found a well-rounded storytelling voice. There was enough depth to solidly ground you in the story without wandering off into left field. She drip-fed us enough details to keep us informed without stealing that sense of wonder from us. However, you could tell that this world had depth to it, even though she didn’t show us up front.

Finally, the thing I liked the most about this novel was the way Melissa took the hints at romance from book two and kicked it up a notch. She crafted a convincing ongoing romance that was easy to believe and cheer for. I expect two weddings in the next book or two, at the rate these love story subplots are progressing! We saw the author’s skills with the romance genre through Owen and Aderyn, and again with Livia and Weston. Oh, and we saw it with Isold and every other NPC character, both young and old.

For the parents amongst us, lets address those intimate moments. All of it is done with the classic fade to black, so we saw nothing that we couldn’t let our kids read. Still, the adults could read between the lines, which worked for me. Speaking of romance, I also liked that Melissa McShane showed the duality of her skills in crafting these tales of the heart. Because of how she wrote all of the things, we saw romance at three levels. With Livia and Weston, we got a committed pairing that was hot and heavy. Hopefully their brightly burning candle wont burn out quicker. But that’s a “future JR problem,” so we can move on. With Isold, we get to see a Lothario archetype that was fun to watch and root for. I fully expect him to have a legit harem in a book or two. And finally, with Aderyn and Owen, we see the sweetness and naivety of two youthful souls finding each other.

The Characters

This novel follows one main character, the journeyman adventurer named Aderyn, and her companions. She is a 20-ish-year-old woman who’s awarded the class of Warmaster. It is a class that gives her the ability to read tactical situations, but since most people in this class are ignored, their full potential is never unlocked. However, the other Warmasters never figured out that their potential has to paired with a companion. Aderyn has Owen, but most Warmasters don’t have a person like him to bond with, to interlace their skills with.

How does this partnership work? Aderyn’s steadfast companion, Owen, has skills that mirror hers. He is the ying to her yang, allowing both of them to be better while working together. One example of a paired ability is the flanking skill. This allows the duo to tag team the enemy. While the Big Baddie is distracted by Aderyn, Owen can stab it in the back. And vice versa, obviously. Another example is the keep pace skill, that allows the shorter Aderyn to run at the same pace as Owen, keeping the paired duo in close enough proximity to work together. There are other linked abilities, but part of the fun of this book is learning with the main characters. So, I’ll leave it there and say that this linked skillset has been fun to explore.

Moving right along, those were more general statements about the main character. But, throughout this fourth novel in the Warmaster Series, Aderyn continues her campaign to prove the worth of her class. Her companions don’t need to be convinced, but Aderyn has a bit of a chip on her shoulder. That part gets a little old, but the good news is that this angle has reached its natural conclusion in this novel and I don’t think that it will be an issue going forward. While my comment about the character’s whiny chip on her shoulder sounds harsh, I do think its very human. This part of the book was true to the human experience, and I appreciated that. We all have the one issue that we are sensitive about, for me it’s my weight and for Aderyn it is her classes reputation.

Another part of this book that I like was how the characters worked together. Through their collaborations, the party thrives and exceeds the expectations of their abilities based on their collective inexperience. We see this when they defeat monsters and dungeons that outclass their individual abilities and class level ranking. Anyone who played sports gets it, teamwork makes the dream work. It is trite, but it sticks around for a reason. It is good advice, and one the author used in demonstrating how this party worked together and grew. And from the characters perspective, they linked their skills in ways that would make Rudyard Kipling proud. In his “The Law of the Jungle” poem he famously said, “For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.” Where one was weak, they relied on the skills of the others to make them strong. And when they were strong, they covered their party members’ weaknesses.

I really liked the arc of Aderyn’s character; she wasn’t your typical modern ‘girl boss.’ Instead, this was a lady who was competent and likeable. She earned every one of her skill upgrades, sometimes in literal blood, sweat and tears. Not in a reckless or selfish way, rather she fought for those gains in a way that made sense. During her time in this novel, she had to compensate for her smaller size and the lower system levels as they traveled through the Forsaken Lands on their quest to take Jessemia to her final destination at Guerdon Deep. She does that, not by being an annoyingly overpowered Mary Sue. Instead, she outthinks the monsters, bandits and dungeons.

Further, during this book she continued her path toward being able to collaborate with her teammates. Mostly this happened by learning and experimenting with the new skills as they grew with every level up. Like I said about teamwork, the ability to trust someone to be strong where you are weak is an ability that takes a lot of trust and conscious work to develop. But she did more than that, Aderyn offered the inverse to her team. She balanced each other of her team’s abilities with her own, making them a more lethal whole. She uses her brains to empower their brawn, and it worked for me.

Speaking of the characters in this novel, they were well-written and fleshed out. Their motivations made sense to me and they felt real. I don’t know if I’d want to have a beer with these inexperienced kids, but I don’t hate them either. Maybe I’m just getting old and crotchety? I found them understandable, because I used to be that young and dumb. But also, sometimes you just wanted to take them out behind the woodshed and shake the stupid out of them. Again, this works because Melissa made these realistic characters and thus, they were fleshed out. They weren’t Mary Sue, cardboard cutouts. Instead, we were given the joy of reading about fully realized human beings with all of the flaws that come with it. Whatever, get off my lawn, and we’ll continue with this deep dive into the residents of the system!

Wait, I lied! I didn’t give enough time to Aderyn’s traveling companions. Obviously, we have her partner, Owen. He’s her lover, her friend and her paired companion. He’s a natural leader and the Fated One. Throughout this book we see him take charge and give orders, but that’s the easy part of leadership. The rest of the team willingly follows him, and in that we see the raw power of his charisma. He’s good, and he knows it, but Owen never lets it go to his head. We see him behaving with compassion, though more of a paternal compassion, when dealing with Jessemia. When other people might boot her from the party, he keeps giving her chances to improve herself. Probably trying to keep peace with his lady friend, Aderyne, but he never comes off as a henpecked jerk wad. And when he gives Jessemia her chances, he makes it clear that there is a limit and when she crosses it she’s on her own. This is partly why he worked as a character, because he walked softly, but carried a big stick… err, sword.

Whatever, the rest of the party is worth mentioning too. I really liked Isold, the herald uses his bard-like skills to get the party out of tight spots. And of course, his own charisma makes him a winner with the ladies. But while he is a lady’s man, he is not some shallow frat boy. He truly cares for the rest of his party, and he worries about the consequences of using his powers of persuasion. Those powers come off as mind control with a Jedi bent, but they would allow the unscrupulous to take advantage of people. He worries that using his powers makes him a bad human, or that someone stronger might compel him to do horrific things with those powers. His fear at that happening is proof, at least to me, that he’s a good man. It is this trait that makes him the likeable lunk who’s more than just someone out to build a harem or add notches to his bedpost.

Then, we have the lovely Livia, a lady after my own heart. She is a magic user of the Earthbreaker variety, reminding me of Toph out of the Avatar franchise. Except, I liked her more because we share the same love of food and drink. She’s also not a morning person and lives on the sacred bean water that some people refer to as coffee. I can truly relate to her, but also because she’s generally so laid back, without being a pushover. More than that, she is powerful in her own right, using her skills to protect her party. She’s quick on her feet, thinking outside the box in ways that make the magic scenes where she’s involved a lot more fun. We saw that when they went to see the experts in the mountain library, only to find the trek up the slopes hard to tread. On the way down, she basically formed steps into the very mountain to ease their travels. It was telling, because during that experience we know she considered that it’d be helping others. It was her stated intent, and true to her character. She’s a caring woman who tries to look out for the world around her… well, except for Jessemia. She hates the spoiled brat, only keeping her around because of her friendship with Aderyn.

And we can’t forget the massive figure that Weston cuts. But, for all of his size, he isn’t a tank player, nope, he’s a sneaky thief who this world calls a Moonlighter. And with a class name like that, he’s such a morning person that you want to punch him in his cheery face. Sure, you might have to jump to hit it, but you get the point. He’s a brute of a man, with a gentle soul, who just wants to protect Livia and follow his friend Owen on his Fated One quest. He’s the quintessential supporting character and reminds me of Samwise Gamgee. He is selfless and unwaveringly loyal to her lover and the larger party. He willingly places himself in harm’s way to keep them safe and I have no problem envisioning him jumping on the proverbial hand grenade for his party. Why? Because he is also a very courageous character who does what was needed to protect his people, even if that meant entering a set of ice caves to face a giant monster alone. I like him, because he’s the everyman, one of my favorite character archetypes.

Further, through the actions of Livia and Weston, we get to see a different type of romance than Aderyn and Owen’s slow build. They’re quickly passionately together (fade to black obviously) and from then on out they are two as one, in an unbreakable partnership. I know some might find their romance to be too quick, but I grew up a military brat who saw this as normal. Sure, many of them ended in divorce, but marriages didn’t used to be things that were decades in the making. The colloquial wisdom was that when ya knew, ya knew and you latched on with both hands. While this couple was very much an odd couple, it is their differences that make this couple work and keeps them interesting.

Finally, we couldn’t talk about the characters of ‘the system’ without talking about the system itself. I know that I covered it in other parts of this review, but I plan on covering it from a different perspective this time, so bear with me. The system has its own character that becomes more obvious in this book. It is working with its own mysterious agency and has connections to the world Owen left behind, and based on context clues, to worlds beyond that as well. We see that in the conversations with each of the sapient and sentient dungeons the player characters have traversed through in the first four books of this novel. There is more there, but I can’t really pin it down yet. Part of it is that I won’t spoil it… and the other part is me trying to figure it out in my head.

Speaking of the game system, it has dreams of its own and comes across like it was the deity for the world of the Warmaster Series. It felt like this was symbolic stand-in for a higher power, which made the world feel even more fleshed out. Regardless of what they believed, there has never been a social group of humans that didn’t come up with some god or gods to worship. It is how humans process the world around them and the things that they’re forced to endure.

Did the author mean it that way? I don’t know, but I’m not sure how else to describe it but as godlike. I’m still working it out on my end, but I truly think of the system as an almost deific creation. Still, who created the creator? Am I reading too much into it? One too many English Lit courses? Is when I am reading it flavoring it? I don’t know, but it struck me that the game ruleset that runs this world feels like the ancient gods meddling in the affairs of man. Your mileage may vary, so check it out and report back in the comments.

The World

This story is set in the fantasy world of ‘the System.’ Sprinkled throughout the various cities are that special breed of humans known as ‘adventurers.’ These people rove around the land, completing quests and trying to earn system growth and advancement. As a GameLit/LitRPG world, it is set against the backdrop of a gaming system and ruleset. It is here that we find the continued tale of characters Aderyn, Owen, and their other companions.

Seriously, what’s not to love about the world-building in this novel? It was expertly handled by Melissa McShane, who clearly knows a thing or two about the written word. I said that about books one through three and now book four hasn’t let me down. She told a compelling story set in a beautiful world of ‘the System.’ Like I’ve previously said, everything was extremely fleshed out, giving this setting a very lived-in feel. Unlike some authors, Melissa didn’t info dump all of her world-building up front. Instead, she fed it to us in drips and drabs that kept me on the edge of my seat, hooked from page one. She expertly strung us along and always left us wanting more.

The in-universe history was one way that the author showed us how deep this world really was. We got those segments of history via diary entries and from bits of lost lore that the herald knew. It all gave us feeling of being somewhere with the patina of age on it. There were no ruins, but the level cap lore added to the feeling that there were epochs of adventuring happening in this world. Even cooler, there was plenty fo room for more storytelling to be had and I want all of it!

What I loved most about this book in particular, was Melissa’s letting us explore the Forsaken Lands. Because of their escort quest, we see the land as they walk all over it. I’m telling you, this was a hike Tolkien would be proud of! They just kept walking, but we interspersed that with the fighting that kept us on our toes. We saw the lands between the area for noob adventurers and those places where the high and mighty roam. I really enjoyed the way that we got to meet new monsters and explore a new hamlet city on the prairie. It felt very much like I was rolling dice with my friends as I read this novel, and I was there for it. It is during these moments where I really get what makes the LitRPT/GameLit genre so popular.

Even cooler, during this book the author shows us more about ‘the System,’ we also got to see a different style of dungeon, one with a slightly darker bent to it. I won’t spoil it, but let’s just say that Wes Craven and Alfred Hitchcock would approve of. I can’t say more, or the experience wont hit as hard, so I’ll move on to other aspects of the deific system. During the course of this book, our main characters got to explore crystal caves and encounter another named monster. Except, during that encounter we see Aderyn and Owen using their brains to outsmart the monster they couldn’t outfight. We also learned about the darker side of some unscrupulous bandit adventurers who prey on their weaker noob peers. Are they still adventurers if they use the leveling system to pursue the evil classes? I’ll have to look into that one. But anyway, I should warn you that this book was a tad darker than previous books, mostly because of the Sorrowvale dungeon. It wasn’t so bad that I needed to double up on my Prozac, but you should be warned! Oh, and I mention it in the content warning session, but the bandits who capture a few women in this book are planning on the struggle snuggle. That also added to the level of overall darkness, but Melissa McShane doesn’t write the darkness without the light… so there is hope at the end of the adventure.

I know that I sound like a crazy fanboy, but trust me, this story was anything but amateur hour! It was an exciting romp through dice and pages. I swear, I could almost hear my favorite dungeon master say, “Roll for initiative” when the combat actions started. It was like I was really in the system with Aderyn! I’m practically gushing over this novel, and you will, too, if you give it a try!

Politics

This novel has no real-world politics and doesn’t stray outside of the standard power plays that happened in the medieval world with several city-states. That absence gave you room for you just to dive in and enjoy some good old-fashioned historic fun! Okay, historic-ish, and the ISH is doing some heavy lifting! But it was the standard fantasy tropes that Tolkien would approve of. However, the plot of this novel did have some internal political thriller shenanigans as the Jessemia plot arc was dealt with. That means that this book might be your thing if you like that genre too!

Content Warning

This was a relatively clean story, so there was nothing that wasn’t PG-13 in this novel. There was violence, but it wasn’t gratuitous. There were smooching scenes, but they didn’t get into detail. They were pretty blunt about what followed, but it was all off screen. However, as a slight warning, there was a section where some of the bad guys wanted to dance the snuggle struggle whether the girls wanted it or not. Still, in the class of good versus evil the good guys win so this was not a mark against this novel. Basically, I would let any teenage kids read this novel as well.

Narration

I enjoyed this book exclusively in the audiobook format. This narration was well done; her accent and the speed of her speech were consistent. I didn’t want to rip my ears off. Bear in mind that I’ve suffered hearing loss while chasing dragons for Uncle Sugar, so your mileage may vary on the accents that were present. I will say that the accents that Talon David did were extremely well done. She was subtle, but there was enough there to differentiate amongst the various characters. I think you’ll also find out that this narrator is undiscovered gem who reads books to us.

How good did I find her performance? She did a good enough job that I bought the rest of the series after listening to her read the first book. I could’ve gone to the ebook, if I had to, but I was very willing to let Talon read it to me. And I’d listen to more books read by her. Heck, I might even hire her to work some of my stuff someday. Her audiobook was of a professional quality, so I had nothing to complain about! She didn’t commit the Cardinal Sin, which is my only real requirement; she didn’t sound like a robot, she didn’t bore me, and she didn’t use accents that annoy the bajesus out of me!

Who is it for?

This book is for people who enjoy a good GameLit/LitRPG story about a pair of young adults finding themselves and the path they want their lives to take. The book Warmaster 4: Sorrowvale continues to expound upon the value that family can have on your life. It highlights those values in a positive light, which is rare these days. I loved the focus on the evolving romance with Owen and Aderyn. Even better, there was an emphasis on the role of a chosen family, as the happy pair engaged with their larger group of friends who made up their adventuring party. If you’ve ever seen the world as it was and wanted it to be better… this hopeful novel is for you. That was my big takeaway from this novel, the role family can play in your life. We even got to see that from both the good or bad incidents.

Why buy it

Before I read this series, I would’ve said that I’m not the typical audience for this one. But Melissa changed all of that. I’m now a convert and just read the fourth book in this series. I’ve even started a few other books in this genre because it was so fun! So, why wouldn’t you buy this book? This was a fun romp through a gamified story that is perfect for all ages. This is a solid escapist story for when you want sword fighting and justice against ne’er-do-wells on a tight timeline. The adventure was compelling, the prose was clean, and the story arc had me unable to stop turning the page. Sleep? Who needs it when this book is there!