Hearthomancy Vol. 1

A Men's Fantasy Adventure

By: M. E. Thorne

Narrated by: JD Tanner, CC Thompson

Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's summary

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?

©2023 M.E. Thorne (P)2024 Royal Guard Publishing LLC

Some of everything.

This book seems like it's trying to hit all the LitRPG subgenres. Apocalypse, HaremLit, small town slice-of-life, system takeover...
And Thorne does a great job with all of it!
I really enjoyed this book.
Great writing and narration.
I'm giving this book 8.5 out of 5 stars.

More of this

Thorne gives some more of their worldbuilding magic.
Lots of system apocalypse-style litRPG with lots of spice.
Highly recommended

Great opening to a new series 

I really enjoyed the details in this book. The author went out of his way to make sure the sentences never became repetitive or boring. The plot was very good with lots of interesting characters that captured your imagination and kept you wanting to hear more. I am very much looking forward to the next.
Oh, and the narrators were excellent!

Gold

I have a few Of ME Thorne's books. This one is by far the best of the lot.
Mc is not a whiner or an idiot. The characters are well done. The best part is the world building. While its not my favorite, I like the world created.
Will definitely get the next books.

Best start to a series yet from ME Thorne

I think this is the beginning of ME Thorne best work yet. They seem to get better and better with each novel under their belt. I really enjoyed the little quotes from characters for the description of items and skills and such. This and other details add so much to the world building and allude to depths not yet explored.

I own 500+ harem novels on audible (all bought with my own money) and I would put this in my top 10 of 1st in a series.

Interesting Start

This author makes some interesting worlds. The Va's did a great job. I'm interested to see where this story goes.

Not horrible, but decent enough to get through

First spoiler warning, some examples may be used from the story so you've been warned.

This wasn't a bad story, nothing offensive that kicked me out of immersion or simply listening to it and finishing it. I can't say that it was phenomenally great either like the handful of 5-star reviews say as I type this. For the most part, it was entertaining. I admit I had a pause in listening to it and finishing it where I kind of went off looking for something else to listen to. That could just be a me thing as I tend to do that often from time to time when a story is not hitting all of the right buttons for me. I can't say that's a negative tho. Just thought it was something I'd share. I admit this might be because there were parts in the story that sort of fell into a lull and fell into the usual HaremLit tropes. I fast forwarded through all of the smut scenes, especially the ones I felt were a bit unnecessary and obviously forced to be there despite an event or another that happened prior to it and the characters should've been in more of a somewhat traumatized state. Yet, they were eagerly jumping in bed together.

With that said, I'd have to say my biggest two gripes have to do with MC and his ability to put two-and-two together at times. I don't want to call him full-blown dumb, but I could tell that Thorne wanted to try to drag out the big reveal in the plot while dropping too many not-so-subtle hints about who the story's big bads were. It also made MC come off as the 'Get off my lawn!" type of homeowner. Let me explain.

MC buys this dilapidated home to fix up due to the mana swirling around it. At some point in time on this world a system "apocalypse" sort of already happened and so MC and all of humanity are functioning through a system. MC choose his classes due to his pre-system profession as a Handyman Contractor and his current class because of the old school Disney anthology movie, Fantasia, and The Sorcerer's Apprentice part of the movie where [SPOILER ALERT FOR ANYONE WHO HASN'T SEEN THIS SUPER OLD MOVIE] Mickey uses magic to do chores in the tower. MC never considered the part of that story where the magic gets out of control and Mickey can't fix the issue because he's, of course, an apprentice at magic. Anyway, that's the entire reason the MC chooses Hearthomancy or at the time Wizard as a class and ignored everyone's criticism that he was wasting his time. I just felt it was exemplary of MC's sometimes sort of dunce/dense-like personality when it came to some things.

So, the point I'm getting at, MC buys this house. Moves in. Never introduces himself to neighbors, which is fine I guess. My wife and I purchased a house in a new neighborhood and due to the business of life, didn't have the chance to go out of our way and introduce ourselves to neighbors. Plus, beforehand we had a difficult time with neighbors at our old neighborhood and it was kind of the reason we moved So, we were rightfully a bit more guarded. MC didn't have any of that, so far, could come out in book 2. Yet when his neighbors come by to introduce themselves, and are pretty friendly, Thorne forces MC to immediately think of them as weird, creepy, and annoying. Later in the story, when one of MC's women offers to get one of her friends to help, MC is thinking about how he doesn't want to share information yet he knows absolutely almost nothing about his class and his girlfriend tells him that she knows someone who does. Later when this person offers to pay him to come live with him and study his property and him and help him figure things out, MC is immediately standoffish, distrustful despite trusting the girlfriend who recommended it. Even later in the story when MC has injured people on his lawn and despite recognizing the right thing to do is help them, he harbors the internal desire to in so many words, "kick them off his lawn because he doesn't want strangers on his property?!" WTF, bro, they're injured and victims of the situation. C'mon.

Aside from that, I don't want to spoil too much, but to get to the dense/dunce thing. There were heavy signs dropped even apart from Thorne forcing MC to telegraph to the reader who the big bad was, but there were obvious signs dropped that the big bads were connected to what MC was discovering about the history of his property. Not only that, I felt that throughout the discoveries of his property's history, MC could've long ago put two-and-two together about, at the very least, the obviousness of what was going on. but almost needed everything spelled out for him. This isn't even getting into some decisions made to upgrade his hearth. Suffice to say, MC recognizes there's a threat to his land, he gets the option to get a weapon's boon or a mage's boon. What does he choose because earlier he met a beautiful female "crafter?" You got it, a crafter's boon. C'mon. He chooses this even after him and his familiar reason that he's a mage and the mage's boon would've been better for them, but they mental gymnastic their way into the crafter's boon for the income a crafter might give them and just because MC wants the Blacksmith Elf to come live with them. Seriously?

But as I said, those would be my two biggest gripes about the story. They're not deal breakers. Your mileage may vary.

Minor gripe - Lorelei, MC's familiar adopted modern phrases far too fast and went from sounding like an elegant, classy women from previous times mixed in with modern times to somewhat semi-childish when the Blacksmith Elf came along.

Second minor gripe - MC was annoyed everyone called the place Rottwood manor when the real name was Rootwood manor, but for some odd reason MC kept referring to the place in conversation and narration as Rottwood manor rather than use it's real name.

Positives - I finished the story. As I said none of the above was too offensive or anger inducing that it kicked me out of the story into DNF territory. Out of about 10-20ish audiobooks I've got to try to listen to during my commute over the last few weeks and/or months, this is the first one I had enough interest and enjoyment in/with to actually finish. The plot isn't overly magnificent or complicated and is quite predictable but not horrible. The narration was good and enjoyable. The characters aside from a bit of my annoyance with MC, were decent.

I gave it overall 4 stars because the narration was good and the story wasn't horrible although I gave the story 3-stars. If you're okay with the usual haremlit tropes, sometimes the story being forced to take a route for the intimate moments, etc. you might like it. Overall, your mileage may vary.