The Die of Destiny Series: Champion’s Quest #1 Published by Shadow Mountain on May 30, 2022
Source: Audible
Genres: Juvenile Fiction / Fantasy & Magic, Juvenile Fiction / Social Themes / Depression & Mental Illness
Pages: 304
Find the Author: Website, Goodreads, Amazon
Format: Audiobook
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It's a strange and intriguing place--Hob & Bogie's Curiosity Shoppe. It's a gaming store, but instead of carrying the latest in cool gaming gear and gadgets, the store is filled with board games, including role-playing games featuring hundreds of miniature warriors, wizards, and monsters, models of dragons, and lots of various-sided dice.
The store windows were too tempting for twelve-year-old Lucas and his foster brother Miles to pass by. Immediately, they're greeted by one of the store owners named Hob, an elderly gentleman with a long, gray beard. Miles thinks he could pass for a wizard. Lucas doesn't want to stay long, not when he's running away from his foster home, where he doesn't feel like he fits in.
Hob invites the boys and another girl, Jasmine Bautista, Lucas's classmate, to play a curious RPG game called Champion's Quest. The game does sound interesting. In it, players assume different character roles and are given dangerous challenges as they earn treasures, acquire weapons, and gain experience points to defeat harder, more menacing monsters to ultimately win.
When Vanessa from the foster home tracks them down, she insists the boys go home. As they walk out the front door, they immediately discover they're no longer in West Virginia, but transported right into the Champion's Quest game--a wild fantasy world of dangerous trolls, brutish minotaurs, and powerful magic.
The four kids--Lucas, a fiercely independent boy who suffers from panic attacks; Jasmine, a feisty girl who struggles to make friends; Miles, a book-smart boy with a wide-eyed innocence; and Vanessa, a perpetually grumpy sixteen-year-old girl--are suddenly immersed in this world as their new RPG characters.
They must work together as a team, overcome their real-world weaknesses, and believe in themselves and each other as champions if they are to outwit, outplay, and survive their foes in this ultimate quest to defeat a treacherous, three-headed monster.
Champion's Quest: Die of Destiny is a middle-grade fantasy with themes of friendship, cooperation, perseverance, overcoming anxiety, and the emotional need to feel accepted.
Review:
Shadow Mountain Publishing hits another great action-packed, middle-grade adventure story out of the park. Like the Fablehaven series, Champion’s Quest takes a group of unsuspecting kids and transports them to another world in a real-life Dungeons and Dragons adventure. Lucas Silver is the main character, and the whole story plays out from his point of view, one of a desperate child who wants nothing to do with the life he has been dealt with and who wants to disappear. On the day he attempts to do just that, he lands in an unsuspecting game shop and rolls a dice that will change his world forever. Join the group and roll your die of destiny and see what happens.
About Frank L. Cole
Frank L. Cole was born into a family of southern storytellers and wrote his first book at age eight. Sadly, he misplaced the manuscript and has since forgotten what he wrote. Highly superstitious and gullible to a fault, Frank will believe in any creepy story you tell him, especially ones involving ghosts and Big Foot. Currently, along with his wife and three children, he resides in the shadow of a majestic western mountain range, which is most likely haunted.
