It’s okay to have a few inner demons, right?Devon has a problem, and it’s not just that her stealth skill is stuck at three. Though that is an issue when it comes to sneaking up on…well, anything.The real problem is that her former guildmate, Owen, is trapped in the demonic plane. Not just his in-game avatar. His mind is lost there too, leaving his real-life body in a coma. The only way to get … body in a coma. The only way to get him back, it seems, is to journey into the underworld and guide him back.
Shouldn’t be a big deal–as long as she doesn’t mind transforming into a demon herself.
Stonehaven League Book 4 continues the saga! Are you ready for a new adventure? Jump in now!
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Ok, first an admission. Even though I’m literally a lifelong gamer, starting with D&D and GURPS as a kid (though my gamer husband, two near adult gamer kids and friends still do monthly campaigns) and morphing into MMORPGs when they came along, I’m still not quite sure what the difference is between “GamelLit” and “LitRPG”, so apologies to purists if I misuse these terms. Either way I adore stories where gaming elements are truly key to such a degree that characters actually live in an RPG for all or major chunks of the novels. And to me “live in” requires things like class selection, leveling up, skill development etc done in a way that both works for the story and is really recognizable to a gamer and has the “gaming experience” feeling. With that as a definition, whatever label you want to put on it, Carrie Summers’ Stonehaven League series is at the top of the list (right next to it is Shannon Pemrick’s Looking For series, closely followed by Jamie Davis & CJ Davis’ Accidental Traveler and Accidental Champion series, with Paul Bellow’s Tower of Gates in the list too). Why is Stonehaven League there? Because this series is perfect. Not only does it have a totally true “gaming experience” and realistic excuse for how the characters are involved in a game world but it also has a double storyline, “real world” and “game world” that works perfectly in both. So now we (I know, finally) get to Citadel of Smoke: A LitRPG and GameLit Adventure (Stonehaven League Book 4). On the game level Devon has another great adventure which this time involves her having to turn demon for a bit. That’s related to the real world level where one of the two AIs running their game is putting players into a coma, and Devon and friends need to take steps in both the game and real world level to save her friend Owen before he’s disconnected from life support. That’s frankly a very poor shadow of a description of a truly fantastic plot that advances an increasingly complex and totally wonderful overarching story arc. I adore this story, its lead Devon and the characters on both the game world (both PCs and NPCs) and real world levels (if you’re not a gamer I apologize for the acronyms – but don’t worry you don’t need to know any of them to totally enjoy this book). This book is a fantastic novel even ignoring that its LitRPG (or GameLit) and readers who know nothing about those genres will still find it a five star read. For those of us who are gamers it is pure catnip. But for the fact that I’m literally dictating this review to my husband from my hospital bed I could go on and on with praises – the book definitely deserves it. Since I can’t do that I will simply note that the book is most definitely one to read, it is easy to highly recommend. I’m definitely looking forward to the next book in this series.