Review of Hearthomancy (Vol. 1)

Blurb: Monsters, mortgages, and madmen – Being a new homeowner can be murder!

My name is Brent, and I'm the proud, new owner of Rootwood Manor. Sure, it's a rundown mansion in the middle of nowhere... but that makes it the perfect place for my magical lair. Ever since the System came to Earth I've aspired to be a powerful wizard!

Of course, difficulties crop up. I’ve got to learn to master my new magic, pay down my mortgage, and raise money for the manor’s repair. There’s also dealing with my creepy neighbors, escaping murderous ghosts, and preventing a blood ritual that could spell the end of the world.

With my beautiful familiar, a stacked Drow blacksmith, and a cunning Arachne scholar by my side, there's no way monsters, sagging ceilings, or blood rituals are going to get in the way of my dream.

Paying the bills and avoiding the apocalypse can’t be that hard, right?

Review: The world has recently been changed by The Reckoning, and handman Brent chooses Wizard as his secondary class. Many think this is a bad choice, but he gains a rare subclass in Hearthomancy. Every Hearthomancer needs lair, and he buys an old manor with a dark past. It's got some powerful mana, but he needs real money to be able to fix it up. Brent has his faithful familiar, a beautiful blacksmith, and a clever Arachne on his side, and he'll need all the help he can get when Rotwood Manor's past starts to catch up to him.

You may notice that in the blurb, the official name of the manor is Rootwood, but since it had stood vacant for so long and had bad vibes, the town had nicknamed it Rotwood, and even the narrator in the book calls it that.

I picked this book up because I was curious to see what a men's fantasy adventure would be like, and I had so much fun with it. I would call it a fantasy adventure harem LitRPG. This is definitely a men's fantasy as the romance is written in the way that annoys female romance writers, but I expected it. Yet if women's romance can have the big beefy Alpha male stereotype, the men's romance can have the stacked and giggling beauty stereotype. The women in this book are thankfully strong and smart, but they still giggle a lot.

There's great world building as Brent has experienced the change in the world since the System has arrived in The Reckoning. I was absolutely drawn in with the different classes and skills, especially with Brent's Hearthomancy. His special wizard class bonds with a location (Rotwood Manor) and they gain levels together. They have dungeons to gain experience in, and there are logical reasons why dungeons appear where they do. It has the statistics like in the typical LitRPGs, but this was so new, I was much more interested than I've been in other books in the genre with a lot of statistics. Rotwood Manor was like a character itself, and it has so much potential. The plot wrapped around not only the manor's past but the whole town's was enthralling. None of it came as a surprise, but it was an enjoyable read.

You can find M.E. Thorne on Facebook and buy the book here.