“Part cozy, part bloody, all fun.”
In Dark Town, Palmer Pickering shows off her versatile storytelling skills and offers an exciting take on the LitRPG genre. Filled with bloody action, wild imagination and a ton of heart, this slightly frenetic adventure has a fun factor that will make you boost straight through the pages.
For the past few years, Temerity has been helping take care of her family’s tavern while her dad and brothers are chasing success in the notorious Dragon’s Crawl game. But true to her name, she decides that she is not made for this boring life, and enters the game herself in the hunt for adventure and in search of answers about her family’s fate. Together with Half-Pint, her house hobgoblin who shapeshifts into a cat (!!), she is launched into an alluring world created by the dragon overlords, where she will have to learn to fight, survive, and grow in order to level up and complete her quest.
Now, when you pitch a book as ‘part cozy, part bloody, all fun’, my interest is piqued. And for the most part, I would have to say that Dark Town delivers exactly on that promise, even if I wouldn’t have minded the cozy aspects to be a bit more prominent; still, for a fast-paced adventure with big personal stakes and high action, it is really quite impressive how charming and light-hearted the entire narrative feels.
Pickering just does a magnificent job of bringing the setting of Dark Town to life, making it feel both comfortably familiar and hauntingly unsettling, and throwing in just enough unique twists and turns to keep up the levels of intrigue and excitement. The atmosphere truly bleeds off the page, and I really enjoyed being introduced to all the intricacies of this rich yet murky game world through Temerity’s fresh and inexperienced perspective as a first-time adventurer.
Though, as much as I liked her youthful ignorance and innocent sense of wonder, I did personally wish for a bit more personality and emotional depth from her to really get invested. For me, her companion and mentor Half-Pint was the true showstopper, and I loved all the hints at his intriguing backstory. Moreover, the dynamic between Temerity and Half-Pint was just effortlessly entertaining, even if their dialogue sometimes felt a bit like an excuse to dump world building/gaming lessons.
With me not being a gamer (RPG or otherwise) and only having read a handful of LitRPG novels, I think it is a testament to Pickering’s skill as a storyteller how easily I felt comfortable on this increasingly wild adventure. While I personally struggled a bit with the fast-paced nature and some of the repetitive action of the game aspect (especially in the fight to defeat the end boss), there is no denying that Dark Town has a dangerously addictive quality that makes the pages just fly by.
Not to mention, the dozens of illustrations really added just another level of immersion to this rich world, helping me visualise all the darkly alluring settings, diverse races/creatures, and dangerous adversaries. It is clear that Pickering has poured a lot of love, excitement and passion into the creation of both this story and the physical book itself, which is exactly what gives Dark Town so much heart and makes it stand out from the crowd.
With this only covering the first level of the in-world game, I am excited by the potential for the world and characters to grow, progress and develop in the next instalments. Whether you are a LitRPG aficionado looking for a fun new adventure or just a regular fantasy fan curious to dip your toes into a different branch of this wonderfully diverse genre, I would highly recommend escaping into Dark Town to experience this dark yet entertaining gamelit gem for yourself.
Thank you to Indie Book Tours and the author for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
