Welcome to SPFBO 8!
This is Queen’s Book Asylum’s main SPFBO 8 page, where you’ll find a short heads up about the contest, info about our process – for a longer explanation, please see our introduction post -, and about all the 30 books assigned to us and how we divided them – including GR and Amazon links – and updates throughout Phase 1 when we post something.

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, the Impossible Times, and the Book of the Ice trilogies. 300 books compete, judged by 10 blogs and at the end of 11 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 Queen’s Book Asylum is back again after a hiatus! We also got new members and a slightly different process than last time. Like the other blogs, we got 30 books assigned as well. We have 4 full-time judges and a ghostie who will haunt our halls and will help out with decision making and moral support as well as doing some reading. Each full-time judge got 7 books – 3 they picked for themselves and 4 randomly drawn – and our ghostie got the remaining 2. We will aim to pick 4-6 semi-finalists before we eventually choose our finalist.
Each judge – except our ghostie – will have two posts up during July – September first to eliminate 3 books with mini reviews, then for their remaining 2-3 cuts and announce their semi-finalist(s). From September through October we’ll post our joint reviews of all of the semi-finalists before we announce our finalist sometime toward the end of October.
Find out more about us and how we are going to do things in this Introduction post!

Below you can follow our process through SPFBO 8 Phase 1. We’ll be doing regular updates as our posts go live. Where available, the book titles are linked to their Goodreads pages, and the covers are linked to the books’ Amazon pages.
Color code:
- Red: cut
- Green: chosen as a semi-finalist
- Purple: chosen as a finalist
Arina
Cover | Author | Title | Series | # | Pages | Audiobook |
Michael E. Thies | Guardian of the Core | 0.5 | 288 | No | ||
Robert H. Fleming | The War Gryphon Saga | 1 | 420 | No | ||
K.A. Ashcomb | Glorious Mishaps | 2 | 382 | Yes | ||
Brianna da Silva | Nerasia, Saga I | 1 | 792 | No | ||
E. M. Howell | Wildflowers and Evertrees | 1 | 473 | No | ||
Emma L. Adams | Relics of Power | 1 | 398 | No | ||
Alec Hutson | The Sharded Few | 1 | 656 | No |
Bjørn
Cover | Author | Title | Series | # | Pages | Audiobook |
Lorain O'Neil | - | - | 240 | No | ||
Pedro Gabriel | Chronicles of Dumah | ? | 321 | No |
Nick
Cover | Author | Title | Series | # | Pages | Audiobook |
Heather G. Harris | The Other Realm | 1 | 312 | Yes | ||
JC Kang | Legends of Tivara | - | 464 | Yes | ||
Melissa Stone | Stars of Destiny | 1 | 219 | No | ||
Valinora Troy | - | - | 308 | No | ||
Aiden L. Turner | The Call of the Darkness Saga | 1 | 483 | No | ||
Chris Fox | Shattered Gods | 1 | 712 | Yes | ||
J.R. Matthews | Portal to Nova Roma | 1 | 609 | No |
Paul
Cover | Author | Title | Series | # | Pages | Audiobook |
Cal Black | Legends & Legacies | 1 | 383 | No | ||
Reuben J Eckhart | An Alliance of Enemies | 1 | 261 | No | ||
Katy Mullett | The Stone Guardians | 1 | 270 | No | ||
Ben Stava | - | - | 150 | No | ||
Coby Zucker | The Fishgut Guard | 1 | 698 | No | ||
Casey Hollingshead | Battle Brothers | 1 | 485 | No | ||
Sean Mauss | Roh Saga | 1 | 412 | No |
Timy
Cover | Author | Title | Series | # | Pages | Audiobook |
Andrea L. Staum | - | - | 214 | No | ||
Reginald Lewis | - | - | 415 | No | ||
Carissa Andrews | The Windhaven Witches | 1 | 322 | Yes | ||
Olivia Atwater | - | - | 250 | No | ||
MJ Carstarphen | Creatures of Dreams | 1 | 326 | No | ||
Rick Waugh | The Eternal Muse | 1 | 537 | No | ||
Olga Werby | The Ornis Experiment | 1 | 354 | No |

Below you see how we scored each of our semi-finalists (they are listed in the same order as announced). The book titles are linked to their Goodreads pages, and the covers are linked to the books’ Amazon pages.
Cover | Title | Arina | Bjørn | Nick | Paul | Timy | Final Score |
7.5 | 9.5 | 7.5 | 8 | 9 | |||
6 | 6 | 8 | 5.5 | 5 | |||
6 | 4 | 6 | 5.5 | 6 | |||
8 | 5 | 8.5 | 8.5 | 7 | |||
4 | - | 8 | 8 | 4 |

SPFBO 8 Finalist announcement – our winner is finally revealed with a little twist
Semi-Finalist Review: The Umbral Storm by Alec Hutson – our thoughts about the 5th and last semi-finalist
Semi-Finalist Review: Penny for Your Soul by K.A. Ashcomb – the team arrived to our fourth semi-finalist
Semi-Finalist Review: The Dragon Charmer’s Apprentice by JC Kang – the team looks at our third semi-finalist
Semi-Finalist Review: The Witch Hunter by Casey Hollingshead – the team reviews our second semi-finalist
Semi-Finalist Review: Small Miracles by Olivia Atwater – the team shares their thoughts about our first semi-finalist
Semi-Finalist Reveal: Paul – our fourth and last semi-finalist announcement and the last 3 cuts
Semi-Finalist Reveal: Arina – our third semi-finalist announcement and more cuts
Semi-Finalist Reveal: Nick – our second semi-finalist announcement and 3 cuts
Semi-Finalist Reveal: Timy – our first semi-finalist announcement and 3 cuts
Elimination Round: Arina – our last 3 to fall in the Elimination Round
Elimination Round: Paul – yet another 3 to fall
Elimination Round: Bjørn – 2 more to fall
Elimination Round: Nick – another 3 to fall
Elimination Round: Timy – our first 3 to fall
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