Series: SPFBO

We have finally chosen our winner for Mark Lawrence’s Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off (SPFBO), in which 300 self-published fantasy authors contributed their work to be reviewed by 10 fantasy review blogs. This last round was really tough, containing some of the best of the 30 books we were given. In fact, we had planned to have our winner declared last week, but we needed a little more time for comparison.

In the end, we chose the book that has been at the top of our list since our first round — The Shadow Soul by Kaitlyn Davis — but it just barely edged out three of the books in our last round!

It’s time for Round Five of FanLit’s participation in Mark Lawrence’s Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off (SPFBO) in which 300 self-published fantasy authors contributed their work to be reviewed by 10 fantasy review blogs.

In the last round we took a look at The Heirs of Lydin, Salvation’s Dawn, The Flight, The Fuller’s Apprentice, and Shadowed Strength. Of these, we liked Joe Jackson’s Salvation’s Dawn best and we also thought The Fuller’s Apprentice would appeal to youngsters,

It’s time for Round Four of FanLit’s participation in Mark Lawrence’s Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off (SPFBO) in which 300 self-published fantasy authors contributed their work to be reviewed by 10 fantasy review blogs.

The Shadow Soul by Kaitlyn Davis’ was the winner of both our first and second rounds. It went up against five more books in our third round and, guess what?

The Shadow Soul advances again! It was almost beat by Peter Fugazzotto’s Five Bloody Heads which we thought was well written and engaging but lacked the fuller characters and more original plot of The Shadow Soul.

It’s time for Round Three of FanLit’s participation in Mark Lawrence’s Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off (SPFBO) in which 300 self-published fantasy authors contributed their work to be reviewed by 10 fantasy review blogs.

Kaitlyn Davis’ The Shadow Soul was the winner of FanLit’s First Round and went up against six more books in our Second Round. We asked you to guess, based on cover art and blurb, which book would come out on top… And, The Shadow Soul continues to be our favorite book so far;

It’s time for Round Two of FanLit’s participation in Mark Lawrence’s Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off (SPFBO) in which 300 self-published fantasy authors contributed their work to be reviewed by 10 fantasy review blogs.

In Round One, we presented six of our assigned books and asked you to guess, based on cover art and blurb, which book we’d like best. Well, we’ve read the books and are impressed that our readers, for the most part, identified the best books without actually reading them. Here is our runner-up and winner:

Runner-up: Bone Dry by Cady Vance is a quick-paced engaging story with likeable characters and competent writing.

This year we’re participating in Mark Lawrence’s Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off (SPFBO) in which 300 self-published fantasy authors contributed their books to be reviewed by 10 fantasy review blogs which will work together to choose the best of the 300 books. (You can read all about it at Mark Lawrence’s blog.)

We’ve been assigned to read 30 books. We eliminated three immediately because they didn’t fit the spirit of the contest very well. We have 27 left.

Over the next three months, we’ll be posting five Thoughtful Thursday columns that each feature five or six of the books on our list.