Guild Mage: The Lady of Winter

by David Niemitz

They killed her master, forced her to flee the College at Coral Bay, and then laid all the blame at her feet.

They sent her fleeing into the mountains, and hunted her through the wilderness.

Now, Liv Brodbeck is returning to Whitehill, and bringing an army with her.

But at the pass between Whitehill and Lucania, she will have to do the

Defeat an Archmage.

Genres: Fantasy

521 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 9, 2026

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

[David Skinner · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve had a major love-hate relationship with this series, honestly more than almost any other I have read to this point. There are some aspects I really enjoy, such as the world building and the relationships that Liv has to balance between the humans and elves with her being half-blooded.

Unfortunately there are a few issues I have with the series that really start to come to a head with this book:

- Liv’a personality/attitude is really confusing at times. She often comes off as being rather careless and dismissive of those around her and will sometimes make decisions that seem impulsive and brash. This would be fine if it made sense for her character to be this way, but in my opinion it does not and the author hasn’t or didn’t intend to develop Liv in this way. After 6 books I still can’t get a read on her personality and this is due to poor writing/character development.
- Liv’s relationships: the relationship she has with Rose just seems…sudden, and unexpected. It didn’t feel natural to me, and this is especially evident right at the end of the book when Rose suddenly decides she no longer wants to be with Liv for reasons that come out of nowhere and feel forced.
- Killing off/not killing off characters: one major issue I’ve had with the series as a whole is that it seems to shy away from wanting to kill off major characters. However towards the end of this book, suddenly we have multiple major characters dying within a few pages of each other during the major battle. We don’t really get the time and space to think about any of these individual deaths and it feels very rushed. In particular, Genevieve Arundell’s death was really disappointing - we know how powerful her and Liv both are but she dies to Liv’s failed Archmage spell, really?

A few things I liked about this book:
- The Tomb of Celris section was really neat
- It feels less “slice of life” vs the previous books. I never felt like this should be a slice of life series but some books contained really drawn out sections that were a chore to read through. Not so much here.
- Some interesting characters get more development; I particularly Wren and Keri were standouts to me in this book.