Splinter Angel: Book 1

By: Avaritiabona

Narrated by: Jessica Threet

Ana just wanted to get home. To slip out of her dress and her heels, take a shower, and get into her PJs. Maybe have some hot chocolate before bed. It had been that kind of night. Instead, the kid she was bodyguarding got dragged through a hole in reality, and she went with him.

The bad news is that once the smoke settled, once she’d dealt with the idiots who dragged them through time and space or whatever, Nic was dead, Ana had no way home, and she had to deal with magic and floating text and a forest full of demons.

The good news? The locals are friendly—when they’re not trying to kill her. And Ana just keeps getting stronger.

©2025 Avaritiabona (P)2025 Royal Guard Publishing LLC

Amazing

I love this title so much this was such an amazing book awesome narration! Cant wait for the next one.

Enjoyable

Enjoyable story. Like the side characters. Like the main character. The setting is neat, and it’s pretty sad the way that nic went out. Though I guess there are worse things to be doing in your final moments. Found this story through royal road - I wanted to check it out but book one is stubbed. Almost never pick up a book when it’s stubbed, if I have to go off platform. But I was curious enough this time to check it out. Glad I did.


My nitpick is that it seems as though the author is testing things out with her. She wants to be seen as kind but acts and speaks edgily, and intentionally intimidates at the drop of a hat (by the way: being passive aggressive isn’t intimidating, though I can see how it may seem so as an imagined scenario). She describes herself as a sort of stoic professional but seems to have pretty intense mood swings. Constantly needling at the idea that she’s a sociopath but always talking about how much she cares about this person or that person or this topic or that topic.

I once read a ww1 story written by a 27 year old who had never even been in a gym, let alone a real fight. The way this character is written reminds me of that. Enjoyable, sure, and fantastical. But always there with some internal monologue, character feature, or quip to remind you how unrealistic she is. As though the author had this great idea for a character but simply doesn’t have the breadth of knowledge or the desire to delve into those aspects of her, and just wanted to use them as character traits. Without going into details, let’s just say that of all of her character traits, there aren’t any for which she has any of the negative side, the yang (or rather, in the way that she is described/she thinks of herself). It’s all yin. Homeless? Yeah, but still beautiful, unmarred by disease or violence, lacking empathy/sociopathic? Yeah but somehow so good socially that she can trick magic professionals. Kinda girlbossy. And I’m not deluding myself - I came for an op progression fantasy. I was expecting girlboss. I just wish she’d grown into that state rather than starting there. And I wish the author had gone a little bit more deep, more visceral into those very extreme character traits. But I also wished the same for DOTF and TPH, and here I am still reading both years later.

Regardless. It’s a good one, I’ll keep reading on RR. And I’ll definitely recommend it to a specific friend of mine. I know she’ll enjoy it.

Audiobook makes the story so much better

I find this to be a great installment of the litrpg genre. The MC is OP to a degree but she still has her struggles and working on learning the world that she has been dropped into. The secondary characters are very relevant and play a big role in creating a well written world. The system messages are not overdone and the stat pages have their own specific chapters if you want to skip over them. The narrator has distinct accents for many of the characters and it feels like it brings so much life to the story that isn't there from just reading the book. The whole experience of listening to this book compared to when I was reading the book has been a massive difference. I fully recommend picking up this book and I can't wait until the next installment comes out.

Significantly better than it has any right to be

I was genuinely surprised by how much I enjoyed this novel. I picked it up after the author did some marketing for it on the LitRPG subreddit, and I have to say that while I was originally mostly in it for Threet's narration (which did not disappoint) the story and characters REALLY caught me.

The stats get a little invasive, but the core idea of a character that's always 1 level stronger during combat but that immediately reverts, and has to experience the back and forth effects of that, is really cool and not something I've seen before.

The characterization of the cast is great, each one is unique and I didn't have trouble differentiating. I really like this mostly a cast of women, a POV that you don't get all that often in this genre and has a noticeably different tone than usual.

Really really good, looking forward to the rest. Highly recommend.

Excellent story with incredible pacing and solid narration.

I just finished 5 books of another LitRPG, that I liked,, but felt a bit unsatisfied by the story. In that story, the voice acting is an absolute 5/5, but the story itself tends to drag a bit, getting too in the weeds of everyday life in that world and the MC, ultimately, has little to do with the outcomes of the various plots. She's too weak to have an impact.
This is the exact opposite, and I am here for it. The world building is excellent. The pace is exceptional, and the titular character is actually the MAIN CHARACTER.
I don't have 2 complains. First, every few chapters the story stops to list off the MC's extensive stat list. it's a bit eye rolling by the third time, and starts to feel droning by the end. Second, there is an odd AI sounding vocal that is interlaced that I find a bit off-putting. It's only 2 or 3 words at a time, but the vocal performance is so rich, that the artificial voice really stands out.
That said, I was so engrossed, I listened to the entire book in a day. I can hardly wait to get into Book 2. Very well done!