We are nearing the end of the cut posts for this year’s Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off (SPFBO)! Today we say goodbye to three more books in our Sixth Fall. After this there is just one more cut post with two books, and then we turn our full attention to our four semi-finalists.
A quick reminder: We don’t read in any particular order, and we don’t cut from worst to best either. We work through the books a few at a time until we reach the semi-finalists, each of whom gets their own dedicated review.
As always: Reading is subjective. What didn’t click for us might be exactly your kind of story. If anything here sounds appealing, please do give it a look!
And a sincere thank you to every author who entered. Putting your work forward for a competition takes real courage, and we appreciate each and every one of you for it.
You can keep up with round one of the contest on the official SPFBO website. And if you have no idea what I’m talking about, you can learn more here.
Leave No Dragon Stone Unturned by Alexa Grave
A half-elf walks into a bar…
Sounds like the start of a bad joke, right? Lila, owner of the Magic Morsel, agrees. As a tech mage who manages the only neutral ground in the Triopolis area, she’s skilled at brokering deals between humans, fae, elves, and a range of other magically inclined people.
Mourning the passing of her grandmother, she’s determined to maintain Gammy’s track record of no major incidents. Then Ash walks into the bar, a half-elf carrying a mysterious item that calls to her.
Agreeing to his request for her services, the deal slides sideways, and she feels obligated to hunt down the stolen object. Her decision leads her to the edge of the Ruins, a forbidden, fallen city shrouded in a cloud of wild magic.
Unfortunately, Lila risks losing her mind among the crumbling buildings and chaotic lightning.
Leave No Dragon Stone Unturned had a fairly consistent reception across the team: fun, light, and easy to read, but with one element that divided opinion sharply.
The setup charmed most judges early on. Lila is a likeable protagonist running a magical restaurant, the tech-magic blend felt inventive and fresh, and the breezy pacing kept pages turning. Several judges were genuinely curious about the world and enjoyed the quirky humour.
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Kerry
This could have been a story I could have got behind; I liked that the female MC Lila was self assured, had an amazing talent at inventing technological gadgets in a world full of magic and ran her own business.
When a job with an Elf goes wrong she is inquisitive enough to enter the dangerous ruins where “Wild magic twisted the entire area, casting a dark, lightning-rich cloud over the land. Perilous bolts zapped the earth, and it always appeared to be dusk or night. The animals that prowled among the crumbled buildings and collapsed networks of caverns had been distorted by the magic, along with the vegetation.” to find an elusive dragon stone. There was even a Necromancer!!
My problem was almost every other page was Lila thinking how hot her client was, how her libido was off the charts and how much she’d love to have sex with him.
There were two real zingers that put me off, one was that her friend packed sexy underwear for her—to go on a trip to ruins!? And then there was this sentence: “Maybe the wet T-shirt and no bra had merely disconcerted him. At least I was wearing gray and not white, but the soaked material clinging to me accentuated all my curves.“
Now, I know there are many, many readers who love this type of romantic, spice filled romance but I am not one of them. If it hadn’t been for the spice and sex, I most likely would have read the whole book.
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The sticking point, raised by almost every judge, was the persistent focus on Lila’s libido. For some it was a minor irritation, for others it got in the way of everything else the book was doing well. The romantic tension was front and centre throughout, and whether that works for you will largely determine whether you enjoy the book. A few judges also found the supporting characters a bit thin, with the villain shift from ice queen to reality TV caricature landing particularly badly for one.
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Julia
Leave No Dragon Stone Unturned is exactly what it says on the tin: a quick, fun, light urban fantasy that doesn’t take itself too seriously and doesn’t ask you to either.
Lila runs a magical restaurant that also brokers deals between people, and when a deal goes wrong and a client ends up robbed by his own ex, she gets pulled into the fallout. What follows escalates quickly, and through a series of increasingly complicated circumstances, Lila ends up on a road trip with both main characters and both their exes along for the ride. Whether that sounds like fun is, shall we say, a matter of perspective.
A special mention goes to Lila’s ex, who spends the book haunting her restaurant, blowing up her phone with messages while she’s away, and ultimately insisting on joining the road trip because she clearly needs his protection. This is apparently perfectly normal behaviour, and nobody really questions it.
When Lila isn’t mentally cataloguing her underwear drawer or reminding herself that sleeping with Ash would be unwise, she’s actually an enjoyable protagonist to follow. Her relationships with her staff have a genuine warmth and loyalty to them, and the potions and tech-magic ideas scattered throughout are cute and inventive.
The plot has holes you could drive a canister of petrol through, and the characters occasionally make choices that don’t survive much scrutiny. But the book clearly isn’t aiming for tight plotting, and in that context the niggles are easy enough to shrug off.
Where your mileage will vary is the romance angle. The sexual tension is persistent and front and centre, from lingering descriptions of wet t-shirts to internal monologues about libido management. If that’s your thing, this probably delivers. If it’s not, it does get in the way of what is otherwise a breezy and entertaining little story.
Leave No Dragon Stone Unturned won’t change your life, but it will pass the time cheerfully. Light, fast, and fun, it’s comfort food fantasy for readers who like their magic with a side of slow-burn romance.
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For readers who enjoy light romantasy with humour, spice, and a fun magic system, this one likely delivers exactly what it promises. For those who prefer their urban fantasy a little less preoccupied with its protagonist’s love life, there is still a charming story underneath, just one you may have to dig for a little.
The Crimson Court by Brendan Noble
The upstart matriarch of a fallen house, Kasia Niezik has sworn to destroy the elusive Crimson Court who assassinated her father. They are near immortal, wielding the spirits that once ended civilization a millennium ago, but she is a Reacher of the realm of Death. Their worst fear.
But to kill her deceitful foes, first she must find them.
Kasia travels to the capital, seeking allies either brave or foolish enough to help her infiltrate the Crimson elites. Whether spirit hunter, princess, or thief, though, everyone has a hidden agenda. And those with the widest smiles hold daggers behind their backs.
The Crimson Court pulled the team in hard at the start and then gradually lost them, which makes it one of the more frustrating cuts to write up.
The worldbuilding was the clear strength. A Russian and Siberian-inspired setting, a magical plague, political scheming, and an inventive magic system built around Reachers drawing power from fifteen different realms all landed well. Several judges were genuinely excited in the early chapters, with more than one calling it potential competition material after the opening.
The problems crept in as the book went on. At over 700 pages, the length became an issue for more than one judge. The pacing held up for roughly the first half before the writing started to feel long-winded and the story began to lose its grip. One judge also noticed some clunky moments where character details felt forced into sentences rather than woven in naturally.
The characters were the most consistent weak point. Despite the rich world around them, several judges found them flat, their motivations stated rather than felt, and their emotional responses thin on the page.
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Julia
The Crimson Court has a lot going for it: an inventive gaslamp world with an interesting magic system built around spirits, an engaging setup, and a genuinely inclusive cast handled with a light and normalizing touch that felt refreshing. An important side character uses they/them pronouns, another has a mechanical leg, and the world reads as quietly LGBTQIA+ normative without making a point of it.
Where it lost me was the characters. They tend toward the readable and role-defined, with motivations relatively easy to map early on, conflicts and loyalties that form quickly, and emotional beats written for immediate impact rather than slow build. The prose and dialogue are solid, but I never quite felt I was discovering these people so much as following them through the plot. For readers who enjoy political fantasy with a fast pace and a cast that is fun to spend time with, this will likely land very well.
I did finish this, though I drifted often enough that the audiobook format probably carried me further than the page would have on its own. There is plenty here to enjoy, and I can see it finding enthusiastic readers, but it did not fully pull me in personally.
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Stacey, who had read it previously on audiobook, was the most positive overall, praising the immersive world and the way the multiple POVs came together by the end, while acknowledging it could have used some trimming.
A book with genuine ambition and a lot of the right ingredients. The bones are strong, but the execution needed a tighter edit to match them.
Remnant by K. R. Solberg and C. R. Jacobson
The shocking death of an immortal sends a master of shadows on a quest for the killer. Jon Therman and his family of sunrock smugglers stumble into this manhunt. A former slave, he only desires to live unnoticed and to avoid the corruption of the world. But when an immortal pursues his children, Jon retaliates.
His daughter, Ella, attempts to rescue her friend from a ritual sacrifice. To do so, she must defy the commands of her fellow smugglers.
Jaded spy Shane zem’Arta searches for his missing commander. His orders complicate Ella’s effort to save her friend and Jon’s mission to protect his family, leading these old friends on a perilous adventure.
Smugglers, rogues, and lords clamber to stand against a powerful cult of immortals. Can these fragile factions set aside their mistrust to survive a burgeoning war, or will they fall divided?
This one was a tough read for the team across the board.
The opening chapter drew several judges in, with a dramatic hook involving the death of an immortal. But the goodwill didn’t last long. From the second chapter onward, the story introduced an overwhelming number of characters without giving any of them enough weight to stick. As one judge put it, the characters never became more than names crossing the page.
The prose was a consistent sticking point. Several judges found it wordy and hard to follow, with a tendency to describe events in a flat, sequential way rather than with any narrative drive. The dialogue leaned toward the theatrical without earning it, and the worldbuilding never quite cohered into something readers could orient themselves in.
Nobody on the team made it to the finish line with this one, and enthusiasm was hard to find even in the early chapters. If you are a dedicated epic fantasy reader with a high tolerance for large casts and a slow build, there may be something here worth digging for.
And there you have it! Our fifth post of cuts! Thank you again to the authors who took the time to enter and had the courage to let us read their work. We wish you all the best in the future!
That leaves us with two more books to cut before we get to the semi finalists. You can see the entire list of 300 books on Mark Lawrence’s website. Good luck to all the authors, and happy reading!
- The Artificer’s Knot by Eric Lewis
- City of Stone by K. T. Holder
- Hunter’s Apprentice by Simon Shugar
- The Non-Magical Declan Moore by Nathan Taylor
- Of Mages and Makers by Rel Carroll
- Physical Magic by William C. Tracy
Our judges this year Adawia Asad, Eva Geraghty, Evelyn Grimald “E.G.” Stone, Julia Kitvaria Sarene, Karen Lucia, Kerry Smith, Kit Caelsto, Maureen Neuman, Robert Max Freeman, Sara Rosevear, Sherry Cammer, Stacey Markle, Tianna Twyman, and Yaniv Rosenfeld Cohen. If you’d like to learn more about us, including our likes and dislikes, you can read about them here. And again, you can learn more about the contest here.
Any queries should be directed to the editor, Jennie Ivins, via DM (Bluesky/Threads).
Featured image by congerdesign.
Summer Hanford
Christopher Keene