Welcome to my not-so-official SPFBO page!
To find out what we were up to in the finals, please check out my SPFBO 6 Finals page!
Before we get to the details of SPFBO 6 Phase 1, let’s get the formalities out of the way first:

The Self-Published Fantasy Blog Off is hosted by none other than Mark Lawrence, author of The Broken Empire, The Red Queen’s War, The Book of Ancestor and Impossible Times trilogies. 300 books compete, judged by 10 blogs and at the end of 10 long, bloody months 1 winner will emerge. You can find every detail on Mark’s SPFBO page along with the process of all 10 blogs in Phase 1.

Team RockStarlit BookAsylum is back for another year! We also got new members and a different process than last year. Instead of everyone sampling all 30 books, we decided to divide our lot among us (everyone got to pick 2 they were most interested in reading, and the rest got sorted randomly). Everyone will pick their favourite from their batch, we’ll read them and eventually pick our finalist.
Find out more about us and how we are going to do things in this Introduction post!

As the other blogs, we got 30 books assigned as well. We have 5 judges, who each will pick 1 semi-finalist once we get through our 6 books each. We will try to write as many reviews as we can. Each judge will have one post up during July – September with mini reviews for their 5 cuts and announcing their semi-finalist. From September through October we’ll post our joint reviews of all 5 semi-finalists before we announce our finalist sometime toward the end of October. Below you can follow our process.

Where available, the book titles are linked to their Goodreads pages.
Color code:
- Red: cut
- Blue: chosen as a semi-finalist
- Purple: chosen as finalist
Belle
Rating | Title | Series | # | Pages | Rating |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Clare Sager | Beneath Black Sails | 1 | 386 | 7.7 | |
D.K. Holmberg | The Volatar Saga | 1 | 501 | 7 | |
Sean Harris | Inescapable | Vampire Wars | 1 | 242 | 2 |
E.L. Aldryc | My Friend, The Gifted | The Universe of Infinite Wonder | 1 | 281 | 7 |
Ela Bambust | Demon Queen | 2 | |||
Eric Sparks | A False Dawn | 1 | 304 | 6 |
Check out Belle’s mini reviews and semi-finalist announcement!
Jen
Author | Title | Series | # | Pages | Rating |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Scott Warren | – | – | 263 | 6.7 | |
S. Kaeth | Children of the Nexus | 1 | 442 | 6 | |
Amanda Fleet | Guardians of the Realm | 1 | 279 | 7.5 | |
Bekah Berge | Shadow | 1 | 328 | 6 | |
Edward Nile | The Ironshield Saga | 1 | 604 | 7.2 | |
Michelle Connor | Nine World Protection Agency | 1 | 134 | 6.2 |
Check out Jen’s mini reviews and semi-finalist announcement!
Nick
Author | Title | Series | # | Pages | Rating |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Dave Dobson | Inquisitors’ Guild | 1 | 317 | 4.5 | |
Eric T Knight | The Dragon Queen of Chaos | 1 | 268 | 6.9 | |
Stuart Kurth | True Steel Trilogy | 1 | 596 | 4 | |
Ginger Li | Light and Fire | 1 | 282 | 4 | |
T K P Sternberg | Pathfinder of Svitjod | 1 | 496 | 6.5 | |
Brett Humphrey | Dragonborn | 1 | 149 | 3 |
Check out Nick’s mini reviews and semi-finalist announcement!
Peter
Author | Title | Series | # | Pages | Rating |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nicholas McIntire | Archanium Codex | 1 | 653 | 7.3 | |
C M Debell | – | – | 1049 | 6 | |
Rainbow Maccabre | Political Nightmare | – | – | 356 | 3 |
Gracen Bridges | Earthcore | 3 | 169 | 4 | |
S.L Rowland | Sentenced to Troll | 1 | 274 | 3 |
Check out Peter’s mini reviews and semi-finalist announcement!
Timy
Author | Title | Series | # | Pages | Rating |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Michael R. Fletcher | The Obsidian Path | 1 | 487 | 8 | |
Chris R. Underwood | The Golden Remnant Saga | 1 | 483 | 7.5 | |
Jennifer R. Povey | – | – | 242 | 3 | |
D.H. Willison | – | – | 297 | 5 | |
Jonathan Pembroke | The Holly Sisters | 1 | 494 | 6 | |
Lily Lashley | 7 |
Check out Timy’s mini reviews and semi-finalist announcement!

The titles are linked to Amazon!
Author | Title | Belle | Jen | Nick | Peter | Timy | Average |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Scott Warren | 6.5 | 7.5 | 7 | 6.5 | 6 | ||
Clare Sager | 8.5 | 8 | 7.5 | 6.5 | 8 | ||
Michael R. Fletcher | X | 7.5 | 9 | 7 | 8.5 | ||
Nicholas McIntire | 7.5 | 7 | 7.5 | 8 | 6.5 | ||
Eric T. Knight | 6.5 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 |

The Host | Type of party | Link |
---|---|---|
Ela Bambust | park tea-party and picnic | |
Eric Sparks | house party | |
T K P Sternberg | picnic | |
E. L. Aldryc | house party | |
D. H. Willison | festival | |
Jonathan Pembroke | Drink-Because-We-Can Party | |
Grace Bridges | a hot tub party | |
Rainbow Maccabre | a pub disco | |
S.L. Rowland | a barbecue | |
Dave Dobson | Inquisitor’s Guild Graduation | |
Bekah Berge | a beach party |

The Reaping – Jen: the first 5 falls and we have our first semi-finalist!
The Reaping – Belle: the second 5 falls and we have our second semi-finalist!
The Reaping – Timy: the third 5 falls and we have our third semi-finalist!
The Reaping – Peter: the fourth 5 (well, 4) falls and we have our fourth semi-finalist!
The Reaping – Nick: the fifth and last 5 falls and we have our fifth semi-finalist!
Team RockStarlit’s review of our first semi-finalist, The Dragon’s Banker by Scott Warren
Team RockStarlit’s review of our second semi-finalist, Beneath Black Sails by Clare Sager
Team RockStarlit’s review of our third semi-finalist, Black Stone Heart by Michael R. Fletcher
Team RockStarlit’s review of our fourth semi-finalist, The Hunter’s Gambit by Nicholas McIntire
Team RockStarlit’s review of our fifth semi-finalist, The Knights of Dragonwatch by Eric T. Knight
Team RockStarlit’s finalist announcement
To find out what we were up to in the finals, please check out my SPFBO 6 Finals page!
Leave a Comment