Coral Bay

Guild Mage #3

by David Niemitz

At the Coral Bay College of Vædic Grammar, Liv Brodbeck will learn magic from the most powerful mages in Lucania.

With a powerful, second word of power that she can't reveal to anyone, a new bodyguard in Wren Wind Dancer, and political backing from the powerful Summerset family, who are now Dukes of Whitehill, Liv is finally in a position to prepare herself for the impending war against the Lady of Blood.

But not everyone at the college is concerned with talent alone - and being a half-Elden bastard is enough to earn her plenty of enemies among the children of the aristocracy who make up the student body.

And with one of the Old Gods once again growing her power after twelve hundred years, not even Coral Bay is safe.

Genres: Fantasy, Magic, High Fantasy, Fiction

350 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 15, 2025

About the author

Dave Niemitz is a writer and teacher; he lives with his wife, son, a black cat named Charlie, and a Pug named Duncan.

Reviews

[William Howe]

so

I took a break around halfway through. Something about binge reading the first 3 made me want to take some time away.

I still think this is a pretty solid series.

[Seth Veale]

Coral Bay continues Liv's journey to find a place in the world while never relenting on the tension her heritage and unusual background subject her to.

This is the last of the "slow" novels in the series that I've read (I've finished book 6). Liv is finally able to leave her prolonged minority despite still being less mature than many younger peers. I really enjoy that Niemitz uses Liv's longevity to convey to the reader that the mental faculties of adolescence are a physical condition. It's a bit of a laugh to read as an adult while thinking, "yeah, you should probably beat the age-appropriate reader over the head with that one."

The broader arc of the story, context and lore start to develop in Coral Bay. We start to understand the deeper nature of the world but limited to local politics, society and economy.

With Liv so well established and understood from previous books, we now get to know her companions as well as a smorgasbord of figures which efficiently convey the sociopolitical subject matter.

In the first 2 books, we learn about the world through the experiences of a few characters and Liv's limited perspective and self-centred motives as a child. In Coral Bay we broaden our perspective as readers while Liv over-balances as she learns how truly exceptional she is.

The book ends with Liv being both triumphant and painfully aware of her inadequacies, genuine youth, and the awful burden of her decisions. This continues the compromised wish fulfilment that typifies the series. Rather than plot twists, the characters instead develop in more humane and reasonable ways - which is a wonderful breath of fresh air compared to almost all books and stories I've encountered. Forward the LitRPG revolution!

The tempo of the series becomes apparent too. Apprentice spanned decades and was difficult to frame, Eld was about 5 years and dealt with prime-time adolescence. Coral Bay is just a year and we can see that Liv is emerging from childhood and about to get down to business.


As I finished this book, I felt Liv turn away from what she wanted most: a place with her family and friends. I felt her unawareness of how people reacted to her; resenting her for being the centre of attention, in awe of her ability and talent, and distancing themselves from her danger.
She has obliviously worked her ass off come what may, grateful for everything she has, even noticing her own standards shifts as she climbs in the world.

Without being told, we know her plan is to kill a god so she can hang with her friends and cook with her mum. Though she has no idea, everyone else knows, and chooses to protect her, teach her, follow her, or fear her - often and eventually, all of the above.

Man, David Niemitz is really showing how to use fantasy in a balanced way. I hope he blows up. 5/5

[Reed]

Soo good!

These books were so good, I could not put them down. I ended up reading the first three books, The fourth book isn't out yet, in 3 days. Stayed up late reading because I couldn't put them down.

[Chetana]

4.5⭐️

I am loving the progression this story is taking. A lot less time is passing by with each installment and now we the story picks up right after the last book stops. The way Liv has grown as a person over the course of her time as a Scullion maid, to an apprentice, to her time culling rifts and now as a student at Coral bay has been a delight to watch. Though the stakes get higher and higher in each book, the story still brings a sensation of something warm to me. Seeing Liv making friends and making mistakes and also making good decisions, actually just living (in unprecedented times, true), but that just makes it all the more relatable in a way as it feels like we are going through that too. Just without the magic and more magic related fantastical elements.

This book had a little more romance in it than the previous books, though it was not the focus of ut. I liked how it was handled - messily as most things to do with relationships are. But not so messy as to be toxic if you get my drift. Liv is still the equivalent of 18 even if she is 30+ years old, and this was her first real foray into a romantic entanglement and she experiences highs and lows and is like any other teen entanglement. I am unsure if there will be an exploration of her sexuality, be it heteronormative or other as Liv is determined to jump head first in to the conflict raging at the moment, but she has built a solid foundation of friendships. I see she gets lonely with the difference in ages between herself and others around her. Despite that she has made friends (and a few enemies) of a group of people. I am looking forward to what she will get up to in the next book!

[Samantha Knight]

Spoiler Free.

I wasn't into this one as much as the previous two. I'm still looking forward to the next installment though the best way I could describe this book was transitory. It makes sense, the story seemed to kind of move on from this installment before it even happened in book two and there was a shift for the protagonist that while also was logical... felt rushed a bit. I think the author and myself as the reader was more interested in what would come after this book and this part of the story was just kind of a necessary step to get there. It was still good and interesting.... just felt like there almost should have been a way to skip it and the author I believe made the right call with how this part of the story progressed.

EDIT: Please add something in your book to remind us the summary or something. Felt like I was doing mental push ups to remember some of the characters for like three chapters.

[Thorsten]

Excellent continuation. School settings are always hit-and-miss, and this is quite successful in that it feels believable. The professors are there to teach, there is a real curriculum and a sense that they are going to classes and studying. I can forgive the school bully/nemesis because he's a side character and not part of a large, sinister plot involving half the faculty, all overseen by a malicious headmaster. The teachers are professional and helpful, and they don't expose their students to ridiculous, unbelievable amounts of unsupervised danger.

There is also a sense of growth in Liv as she starts making more adult, long-term decisions.

All in all, I really enjoyed it and am moving directly onto the next one.

[Dantegideon]

A bit unsatisfying honestly. At three books it still feels like they haven't quite decided on the main plot, so we get a bunch of monster of the week stuff. Next book promising to be monster of the week in a new place! Which is what this one was, academy instead of mountains. I don't know if I'll keep on, I looked ahead a bit and it all sounds very predictable. Blah blah framed for murder, kryptonite stuff to add tension without plot development. And I preferred the first two books where there was more continuity, not shuffling characters in and out when they get bored of them. I don't know, it's fine for them to change tone and direction but I think it's not for me.

[Gary]

Cracks are showing in this series. The MC is really dumb now, including everyone begging her to report a threat o the community and she means to, but the drama with her roommate and the boy chasing her... ooppps

And she is the most powerful bestest ever, so instead of structuring the plot to account for this she instead faces green kryptonite for no reason. And characters just sort of come and go.

And a plot point is that her mother is now old and still has to work as the castle cook-- while MC has a pension from the king and is also a noble herself, and has servants and is rich, and spends money on herself all the time. WTF?

[Nathan]

we were merely (36 year old) freshmen

Liv goes to college, young for an eld, almost 40 in human years, with twenty four years of magical tutoring and lived experience more than the humans who are her emotional peers.

She collects friends, shows off her quality homeschooling, thwarts an invasion, standards first-year stuff.

Too bad about the boy, but grief will make you dumb (plus this isn’t a romantasy, though I can see a path being laid out with a vision quest or two).

[Lucas Lima]

Well, there's a little setback in the pace of the story, comparing Coral Bay with the first two books in the series.
I really like the chapters in the Eld Tribe, with the reveal of the traitor in the tribe, and what happened to Liv's Grandfather.
But the academy ambience really bothered me. Liv, especially. I really liked her better when she was just the cook's daughter, discovering her powers, learning about mana and her descendency. But here, she's was very spoiled some times, even unbereable.
And i really don't understand how she can have Thora as her maid and Wren as her bodyguard in the academy and every other student are by themselves. It's just not cool to see through this.

Anyway, still wants to read the other books in the series, it has more positives than negatives, but probably will hold it for some time to get Journeymen. Let's see if it ages well in my head.

[Les]

Still terrific

Liv has thrived at mage academy but even there her enemies exist , but she learns to fight through her issues and does really well when the academy is attacked but unfortunately she used forbidden skills and is sent to the east to fight monsters in the hope of bidding her forbidden knowledge. Great continuation of the story and looking forward to book four

[Chris]

Couldn’t stop reading!

I was worried going into it that this would be a step down from the previous books, stuck in the tropes of a magic school. Instead, this book delivered fantastically to develop old and new characters while also upping the stakes and having time for some great fight scenes. Great read for sure.

[David Scoins]

enjoyable series

I enjoyed this enough to read at least three of these back to back. I liked the low error rate. I note that, as with superheroes, shapeshifters don’t admit to issues with clothes - Wren, throughout, keeps clothes and weapons with no weight problems. I definitely like waiting until book 3 to get to college.

[T'sani]

This series is absolutely amazing and I am glad I stumbled onto it. I am extremely impressed with the world building, magic system, character development, pacing/time skips, depth of secondary characters and so much more.

[Mark Katerberg]

Had some ups and downs but overall I enjoyed it a lot. The magic is cool, and the characters feel real, but the world forces in really odd interactions. This one felt slower paced, and it is developing into one of my pet peeve books where modern day science is “being discovered” by magic.

[Topher]

I'm reading this on RR, but will likely transition over to adding it to my KU list instead at some point (very likely starting with #5).

[Tony Hinde]

I had no trouble reading this novel but I doubt I'll remember much about it in a month's time. That's enough for me.

[DJ DC]

the plot was not os good a previous in series. a convoluted academy story.

[Dominique]

I like it. More thoughts to come later.

[Cal]

Series still going strong. Great pacing and characters.