Azarinth Healer: Book Two

Azarinth Healer #2

by Rhaegar

Still haunted by her encounter with the Taleen Praetorians, Ilea makes her way south to join the Shadow’s Hand and hone her skills. Having fought alongside members of the infamous mercenary order, she hopes to meet kindred spirits who share her completely reasonable passion for battle, adrenaline, and near-death experiences.

She is looking for a team to rely on, to punch, and get punched by. Because every ‘friendly yet bloody’ sparring match levels her resistances and makes her a little bit harder to kill. She might even stick around for a while. So long as the food is good.

This guild of high-level warriors is the perfect place to grow and recuperate. To take a breath after the non-stop elven attacks, dungeons, necromancers, and Taleen murder machines. Ilea jumps headfirst into her newfound challenge, unaware of the fresh dangers already beginning to stir throughout Elos. Even their Shadow’s Hand training will not prepare Ilea and her new team for what’s to come.

After all, there’s always another Drake.

Genres: Fantasy, Audiobook, Science Fiction Fantasy, Adventure, Fiction, Magic, Role Playing Games

719 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 20, 2023

Reviews

[Russell Gray · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm usually a bit generous when I rate Book 1 of a series since I expect and hope that certain things improve a bit. Characterization has more chance to take the stage in a second book as well. So my generosity with the first book isn't happening with this one.

I still dislike Ilea and probably like her even less now if that's possible. She genuinely interacts with other characters in one of three ways: wants to have sex with them, wants to fight them, or doesn't care about them and thinks about her next meal. This made for a pretty boring experience in my opinion, especially since the plot of this book felt like side story material.

There wasn't any tension in any of the action scenes since all the stats don't mean much. I ended up skimming liberally during the 2nd half of the story. There's also a scene I found pretty gross around the midpoint that made me dislike Ilea even more. I don't consider myself overly PC or sensitive to many topics, but I'll just say that I found a particular sexual interaction pretty gross, especially when I imagine how it would be with the genders reversed.

I honestly didn't enjoy anything about this book and I'm surprised I finished it. This series isn't for me.

[Jacob Proffitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is second in an isekai LitRPG series that picks up right after the first left off. Read in order.

You really do know what you're getting by this time with this story. This only really differs in that Ilea makes actual friends in this one that seem like they'll stick around.

There are some world-shattering events that happen. And Ilea does her thing where she takes challenges head-on. And I was even worried for her for a hot minute when she got sucked into a portal to the demon lands. But it was all fun adventuring goodness, really, so no harm.

I'm going to give this four stars for delivering the expected goods and keeping it fresh with some interesting developments. Plus, ending with enough momentum for me to take steps to continue the story on Royal Road.

A note about Chaste: There are a couple times where Ilea had herself a good time. And there are references to having had a good time. But they're vague enough that I didn't find them steamy at all, so I consider it chaste. That's a close call, however, and you might easily disagree.

[Roberto Flores · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to think about this one for awhile before rating it.

I did not care for this book, it is a two star story. But the character work is just as good as book one. The issues I had were from the ineffectual guild and the pivoting of the story. This left the first half feeling dreadfully boring, and the last quarter being conveniently quick. The story has nothing to do with book one making this a very broken series. That said, if you enjoyed book one for the main character then this one has more of the same. If you want an engaging story, this is a miss.

[Петър Стойков · Rating 5 out of 5]

Писнало ли ви е от заплетени, претенциозни фентъзита, пълни с интриги, сложни човешки взаимоотношения и връзки, тайнствени и древни загадки, мрачни пророчества и други отдавна издишали клишета на жанра?

Спомняте ли си умиление книжките за Конан, дето главният герой (демек Конан) изрива като булдозер де що има вражеска гмеж, наебава де що има секси мадама и накрая се възправя полугол, мускулест и омазан в кърви (не негови) и въздал справедливост, върху планина от черепи на злодеи и чудовища? Да, аз също си спомням.

А искало ли ви се е тия книжки да не са 200, а примерно 7000 страници, Конан да е слабичка мацка и да пребива вражеската гмеж с голи ръце, да наебава не само секси мадамите ами и някой секси пич помежду другото, и след непрестанните битки да се възправя обвита в пепел и омазана в кърви (не нейни) и въздала справедливост, върху планини от трупове на злодеи и чудовища?

Да, и на мен не ми беше хрумвало, че може да искам точно това, но се оказа че го искам и още как...

[Tony Hinde · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 Stars

Book two is even thicker than book one but otherwise very much the same. Ilea is the woman without fear, managing to survive fight after fight only to get stronger. I'm not a fan of her emotionally monotonal inner dialogues, made worse by Andrea Parsneau trite narration, but there's still a lot to like here. [Please Andrea, stop chuckling and then going on to say, "she chuckled." It's both irritating and redundant.]

This book follows Ilea as she joins the Shadow's Hand, an elite adventurer outfit whose internal structure and politics seem a little laissez-faire. She becomes part of a team, few of whose members take it seriously, and takes on several adventures that do little to advance the plot until... the big event. This is where we see some truly creative content. Although it has the same vibe as the rest.

There's little that is ground-breaking in this series but it has good pacing and plenty of action. If you're after a fun ride, this may be for you.

[Douglas · Rating 2 out of 5]

A weaker entry than the first book. Story is fine. The main character is still a bit of a sado-masochistic psycho. MC interacts with others a lot more, so there is huge amount more cringy dialogue.

Characters are pretty one dimensional even the MC.

Audiobook narration is OK. Annoyingly, the narrator add in unprompted chucking and laughter that makes the MC sound even more unhinged. Personally I dislike laughter being voiced at all and the narrator adding her own just makes it worse (and the dialogue even more cringy).

[Draim · Rating 2 out of 5]

First book was a good balance of heros journey and exploration.

This one is big part a Mary Sue story and really weird and flat characters with almost random story that doesn't feel like it leads anywhere.

[eddie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book the characters jus got better the world got even more crazy and fun to be in and the story kept me wanting more and the very best part the status updates were fixed quicker and few and far between

[Sabs ✨️ · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 🌟

[GiGi · Rating 3 out of 5]

The drawn out battle sequences ruined the flow for me but I'm still loving the overarching plot

[William Howe · Rating 5 out of 5]

glad to pay the author

I have read a lot of this series on RoyalRoad.

The MC continues to be a battle maniac. Not really into deep feelings and introspection. Eating, fighting, and…fornicating (fade to black type). She *is* pain-is-weakness-leaving-the-body. What doesn’t kill her should have tried harder. Cuz she’ll be back when she gets stronger.

Be advised: this was written and published as a serial. It does not fit easily into novel format. This one ended in a good spot, but there was some clear meandering along the way that you wouldn’t find in a traditional work.

[IU_read · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the first book but not this one. The story keep dragging with very slow plot. Ilea is fun character but the story keep repeating the same thing. Kinda dissapointed.

[Kat · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.75 stars. This was a disappointing second book for me. The beginning of this book was briefly encouraging with the development of a team. The team, however, barely bonded before plot developments split them up. Characters have no depth. Had to skin last 30%. Will not bother to continue.

[Aubria L. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Surprisingly good, I almost didn’t finish bk 1 in this series and I am enjoying bk 2. The characters are fun and magic is interesting! I am definitely moving on to bk 3! I strongly recommend the audiobook format for this series - superb narration indeed!

[Kathleen Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

5/5🌟

[DJ DC · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm totally invested now. this volume could be titled Horde Mode. i was great to see the incremental character development and so many engaging battles. Also, some awesome now characters. it's an academy drama with a touch of Stargate!

[SlyyKitten · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

[Pablo García · Rating 1 out of 5]

I would have thought that the main theme of this Fantasy-isekai (teleported to another fantasy world) book series was survival, but because the main character poisons, wounds, and constantly endangers herself as many times as possible, the main theme then could be interpreted as the main character, Ilea has a serious death wish/warmonger/psychopathic tendencies to harm herself and others. This is a total contradiction with the title of the story, because "healers" are supposed to "choose life", "choose to protect life". The Azarinth "cult" or group used to be her lifestyle/training/philosophy, but it was totally discarded by the author at the end of book 1. So, a lack of real vision, main theme and secondary arcs is missing completely in this second book of the fantasy-isekai series.
Like a total psychopath, the author, writes that main character, asks everybody in her team to constantly attack her with their most dangerous and damaging attacks (so as to raise her levels). But is a leveling system and a progression system enough for a Fantasy-isekai book series?? Main character trains and improves for the sake of training and improving, but improving and training for what?? There is no real reason for this book 2 or the entire book series. Main character already has more money (gold) than she can spend, eats more food that an entire family, has no real family to go back to, no real life-goals, big-picture to achieve....It's a story that is going nowhere as fast as possible (main character flies everywhere she goes).
Again, the author of this fantasy-isekai book series is so blatantly ignorant that the main character has never, ever had a problem translating/reading foreign books/texts, talking to demons from other worlds/netherworlds, especially without a universal translator, learning alien languages for decades before being able to communicate properly with all the beings from all of these foreign lands and foreign worlds. Even in mainland United States, there are foreigners talking and communicating in foreign languages, so how is it possible for the main character to communicate with knives, monsters, demons, foreigners, aliens, etc.???? Delusional and nonsensical completely and totally.
I do not recommend this book or the series.

[Andrew G · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’d say this book was a dash to cold water over a what was a mostly fiery first book in the series. I found myself genuinely disliking decent portions of this book. I think there are patterns of writing exposed in this book that reveal the authors lack of writing experience.

In my review for the first book, I mentioned the things I liked the best about it were its episodic nature, kind of reminding of the first Witcher book (in narrative style not quality), and I also liked the relentless pace of leveling. We do mostly stick with the episodic nature in book 2, still no overarching plot revealed but definitely some foreshadowing of that, however some of these episodes were boring.

And let’s just examining detail the most boring episode, the Shadow Academy. Now, you would think we would have some interesting teachers, make some friends, make some enemies, learn some stuff, you’d be mistaken on all of those counts except for the friends part. MC is assigned a team of four people, they are all introduced in their first combative class, but it’s not really a class. The class had a leader for the first meeting, a guy who supposedly takes the role to move up in the organization. I thought he was assigned to lead the team as an elder. Nope, he never shows up for him. Big sacrifice for him to show up for one four hour session. Apparently the team is on their own, no leadership structure, no classes on tactics or anything like that. They just get together and fight each other.

As for other classes, apparently they have to take a beasts class, but the rest is up to them. MC takes one other class, an archery class, and she’s literally the only one in the class? What? This a giant mercenary company with thousands of members, their own underground city compound, and there’s one single person working on archery? They regularly skip classes, go on their own training excursion. They start going on missions but never graduate and still have classes? When they leave the academy is never formalized, they just stop talking about it and go their own ways. So confusing.

To enter the guild it costs 300 gold and 5% of your contract earnings or ten years of service and a large majority of your contract earnings. What’s this pay for exactly? How is a combat class without any senior leaders, just your other noob teammates, something worth paying for? How is a room, a bed, and food (even though how these people eat is never described), and a couple of classes worth 300 gold and ten years of one’s life? If it was like a strict, 2+ year program with classes led by high level expert members on an array of topics, then that’s worth it for sure. But the author of establishes if there’s not an interest in a class from other students (are they even students?), then they have to pay for it themselves. One of the teammates who’s at the academy on a contract, just leaves with MC at the end, like he isn’t contractually committed for 10 years to run missions for the company. Never explained, but you know the author wants them together for the next book, so who cares if it makes sense?

And where are the other students? The snobby teammate already quit one team, where are the rest of them? Literally never described. Even the classes they take, the teammates are the only students ever mentioned in the class.

The entire narrative of the school is just so lazy and sloppy, and a missed opportunity. I would think someone so combat focused like the MC was in book one would have been itching to close the gaps on her weaknesses, but she doesn’t seem to even think about that.

We also never meet a single other student outside of the four teammates. And the teammates are the entire reason behind this academy narrative. It’s not to learn anything, she’s learns nothing really. It’s just to establish these new characters. Side characters should be dimensional if they’re a significant part of the story, but some of them should present as unlikable, and/or have questionable or unknown motives/allegiances, and/or be viewed with suspicion. That’s just realistic.

Two of the teammates are initially presented as unlikable, but in both cases, once we unpack their background and form their dimensional depth, they become sympathetic and of course have their own maturity growth to become officially likable to the MC. How quant, I mean predictable.

I went into detail about this because this is a pattern the author follows, of having some outline and just lazily filling in the gaps. For instance, one teammate dies in the book, so the author said, well we have to establish why the MC cares so let’s just make the dead person initially guarded from MC, then comes to open up to MC, then when they die, MC will care. And the author just fills the gaps without any real thought to the overall narrative. Amateur hour.

The other episodes are more interesting at least even if I have a hard time understanding why all these things are happening at once. I imagine it’s because of some larger narrative, but not yet revealed nor do I care honestly.

As for the second aspect I liked the most about book one, the pace of leveling, we went from a little over 200 levels on book one, to about 20 on book 2, so hard slamming on the brakes which is a big mistake in my opinion. It’s the same amount of fighting against similarly stronger opponents like last book, it’s just now they don’t give as much experience I guess. The reason is it “slows down” after 200, which translates to the author wanted it that way so that’s the way he wrote it. Super lame. I mean she almost single-handedly kills a level 800 something demon and gets one level out of it? Stupid. The payoffs are why we read this, that’s what this genre is about! You can simply have a system with more levels, no need to pump the brakes. Just dumb writing.

So really not a fan of this series after book 2. I think the MCs path is interesting, but I can say the same about almost every progression series I’ve read. The MC herself is contradictory, and not in a human way, just a bad writing way. She’s annoying. None of the other characters are anything that grabs my attention honestly, other than the talking knife but it’s a side thought unfortunately. The pace of progression has stalled, and the author has shown a tendency to fill their outlines with a bunch of mindless dribble. The next book is 50% longer than this one.

Ugh, I’m gonna read book 3, but it’s more out of boredom with anything else to read than really my interest in the series. The reviews get better, but that happens in a lot of stories as they lose more discerning readers along the way, so I’m not gonna hold my breath.

[Luke · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is still enjoyable but aimless and slow. A substantial drop-off from the first novel.

I still like our MC, though some of her quirks are becoming a bit tired. Her personality and maturity doesn't really seem to have evolved all that much. Her constant drive to battle is fine, but this novel felt stagnant on that front... just increased numbers and stats, with very little novelty.

I don't really care about any of the new secondary characters. They have some hidden backgrounds that could become potentially interesting plot lines in the future, but in this novel everything is left dramatically underdeveloped.

I found that the combat was still well-written, but it has lost a lot of my interest given how repetitive it has become and how OP our MC is. I did appreciate that some of the more rote battle sequences were left out. I found myself skipping a lot of combat text, looking for the next dialog section.

I wish the magic system had a bit more structure. The "let's just make up whatever we want" style leads to a loss of interest there.

I'm hopeful that the next volume can become more focused, with more exploration and tension and novelty.

[Amalga Mat1on · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just an MC Making Her Way Through Life...

...A chaotic, highly dangerous, and ever exciting life, but life nonetheless. The series slows down in pacing in terms of level progression but grows in character and plot development. A more than healthy amount of action, and some comedic dialogue that had me rolling at times (That damn dagger is becoming hilarious).

Overall, this story continues to be a fun ride.

[Suz · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a bit better than the first but the reading of the stats is seriously out of control with this series. I feel spoiled by The Wandering Inn, which never beleaguers the cultivation aspects of its litrpg genre. This is not that.

I did warm up a bit more to the MC, but she's still a long way off from caring about anything except kicking ass.

[Celine · Rating 4 out of 5]

When is book 3 coming out 😭😭😭 i need it in my life

[Jon Svenson · Rating 5 out of 5]

In book two Ilea Storm wants to forget about the Taleen dwarven dungeon and move onto something new. Which she does by joining the Shadow's Hand. In any other book this would be an assassination/rogue organization, but here it's a group of level 200+ people who are formed into teams, trained to fight together, and then sent off on missions.

Ilea is given a team after paying to be a member. There is Eve, a woman who can use sound to make people do things and does act like an assassin. Claire is the team leader, and then there's the noble and the stuttering guy.

I felt the book dragged a bit at this point. The training is fine, but when we get to the missions the story picks up again. I'll stop the recap there, and what I shared only scratches the surface of the story. This is a long book, and for a good part of the time every page is filled with action, death, and killing. It's what Ilea's good at, after all.

In terms of character development, not much happens. Sure, Ilea opens up about a few things but that's it. if she had a Tinder account it would read, "Level 201. Strong and I prefer fighting with my hands. Ready for some fun but no attachments." Everyone would swipe right.

The editing is solid for such a long book with made up names. There are plenty of notifications as Ilea rarely stops fighting, even when others are forced to take a step back and recover. I wouldn't say she is OP but at times it feels that way simply because she can do more than everyone else. This is exemplified in one of the missions where because she has the ability to bounce back against nearly anything.

I really enjoyed this, but not as much as book one. The fights almost seem to be too much, more than a person could ever deal with. Anyone except Ilea. 5/5*

[Steve Naylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating 3.o stars

I was a little disappointed in this one. I liked the first one. This one was pretty much just fighting. The MC grew in strength but there wasn't any other development. She joins the hand, gets a team and she fights. A lot. That's pretty much it. The story itself is lacking. Some of the main points and characters from the first book are missing in this one The big points in the first book were the Taleen dungeon, the elves, and the group of fighters she met in the Taleen dungeon. There was also the minor character of Alice and the friend/lover whose family died in the first book. There was nothing about the Taleen dungeon or the elves in this one. The group of fighters were mentioned and maybe had a 5-minute cameo but that's it. Alice was mentioned but wasn't in the story. Her friend/lover and his daughter had a 3-minute cameo. Instead of the elves, demons were the big bad enemy in this one. The world building was terrible. What is going on? Why did the elder release the demons on the world? What were the group from the first book doing? Where the hell is this story going.

The MC is kind of one dimensional and more of a caricature of a person. Everything she does is over the top. I don't feel a connection with the team. The whole thing fell a little flat to me. The jokes weren't funny, and I didn't really feel any emotions while listening to this audiobook. Overall, meh. I might continue the series but it won't be on the top of my list.

[Denver C. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A STRONG FOLLOW UP THAT RESOLVES SOME ISSUES WHILE INTRODUCING ANOTHER.

Book Two of Azarinth Healer was a blast, setting right out as I thought it would to resolve my biggest issue with the first installment - the lack of a real supporting cast.

There were other characters, sure, but you would only really see them in passing. Book One worked with the sheer amount of action and power-levelling that Ilea went through, but she needed other personalities at a more permanent level to help balance her out.

Of course, while we did get that here things seemed to go too far in the opposite direction. We got more characters and a lot of time spent fleshing them out, but Ilea's progression slowed MASSIVELY and at times the action felt more like a chore of necessity as we jumped from place to place. It served as more of a vehicle for cohesion between Ilea and the new characters.

Over all, Azarinth Healer retains its core strengths: a bad-to-the-bone female main character who avoids gender stereotypes of the genre, a great dual-Class combo that feels unique amongst the hordes of LitRPG stories out there, and some truly phenomenal action sequences when everything was firing on all cylinders.

I will certainly be picking up Book Three - with the caveat that if a better balance isn't found between progression and supporting cast growth, my rating will likely start to drop.

[Lulu · Rating 2 out of 5]

Slightly improved from book 1, because Ilea is with a group! yay! Unfortunately, there are still no stakes, and Ilea is still pretty unlikeable. The ridiculous growth has slowed (but the reasons for that arent very satisfying) and though there isnt much coherent plot, there is a tiny bit of attention actually applied to the whole she-came-from-a-different-world thing.

Very minor spoiler below I guess? Idk what counts

This is a personal thing, but I DNF this one at like 55% because the way Ilea seduced (?) her significantly less experienced team mate felt really predatory and icky to me. He was obviously uncomfortable, and when he kept redirecting her more direct advances, she came up with a tricky way to get him to her house. She continually pressed him until his first kiss which immediately turned into his first sexual experience (and given his hesitancy about the kiss, I could only assume she directed and pushed the whole way). Only after all of that did she tell him she only wants something casual. WHAT DO YOU MEAN casual? This man is on your crew that you have to work with literally daily, you pursued him heavily, and experiences like that, especially first ones, can mean different things to different people. I'm not a prude but COME ON this is unnecessary at best and irresponsible and cruel at worst. If Ilea had been a man, everyone would be in uproar. It's no better just because she's not.

[David Pontier · Rating 4 out of 5]

I gave the first book five stars as I thought it was a really good introduction to the character and she leveled up so quickly and her powers evolved such that she was always discovering something new she could do. Plus, you got to see her go from someone who had no chance of defeating an elf at the beginning of the story to someone who took on multiple elves at the end. I always prefer a good story arc with foreshadowing and conflict resolution, but I was able to overlook that in the first novel.

Not so much in this second one. Ilea's development in this book is less profound. She went from level 1 to level 200 in the first book, but I think she only advanced 20-40 levels in this one and didn't gain any significant new skills or abilities. She ran into one enemy toward the end that she couldn't defeat, and I was looking forward to her matching up with it again later, but it didn't happen.

Joining the Hand had the potential to give her meaningful quests or the chance to uncover a rich storyline, but they only went on random missions until all hell broke loose (for no discernable reason or motive), and then the rest of the story was comprised of chaotic encounters that felt repetitive.

I still gave this story 4 stars because it is well written, and the MC is likable and unique, but I think the following stories are going to feel like "Contractual Obligation Sequels," even though I know they aren't.

[Miguel · Rating 3 out of 5]

As fun a read as this series can be, the world and character building are really shoddy. Ilea is the viewpoint, and so receives the most development, except I cannot for the life of me make out any concrete themes! She's a sort of blend between a life ill-spent and a desire to help others, which at first seems to tie-in well with her healer class. Except by this book, she's not a healer class anymore and her healing is now just for her mostly. If rpg mechanics are a vehicle for character development made physical, this class would be the embodiment of "yeah never mind I'm no. 1".

She spends the whole book with teammates too, which raises some questions around the "lone hunter" class name. It often feels like the author writes things into their MC that mean nothing and lead nowhere. The Azarinth order hasn't come up since the very beginning of the first book, which is odd given the title. The MC is likeable and the combat is passable, it just seems like this series could be legitimately good if the author sat down and tied all these threads together instead of throwing random crap at the wall.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

this is nearly enough to be a 4 but I had a number of small issues throughout.

About 50% through the book is nearly had to leave it permanently. it was dry, dull and overly generic. the key enjoyment of power leveling and discovering fun new abilities seems to general been dropped away for a dull fantasy story. her independent chaotic nature worn flat by uninteresting secondary characters who hold her and the story back more often than not.

Towards the last quarter of the book things finally picked up a little but the general explorative world building and power leveling seems to have been replaced by light politics, emotional team building, and general punching.
Normally I like the punching, as it came with new powers and new forms of combat; now it's just repeating the same powers and same combat. all creativity (and much of the near death risk) seems to have gone.

Despite all this, I will give book 3 a go at some point but I'm strongly expecting a DNF unless things change considerably.