Item: Guild of Tokens
Rating: 3.5
Author: Alana

Guild of Tokens by Jon Auerbach
Series: Guild of Tokens #1
Published by Independently Published on June 20, 2019
Genres: Fantasy, Urban Fantasy
Pages: 420
Format: eBook
Source: ARC

She wants to level up her humdrum existence. But her next quest could spell life or death.

All Jen Jacobs has achieved in life is loneliness. So when she stumbles across a real-life game of epic quests on the streets of New York, she jumps at the chance for some excitement and gold tokens. Little does she know that the items she strives to collect hold a darker purpose...

After a particularly harrowing quest pairs her up with Beatrice Taylor, a no-nonsense and ambitious mentor, Jen hopes she's on the path to becoming a big-time player. But as she dives deeper into the game's hidden agenda, she realizes Beatrice has her sights set on the Guild, the centuries-old organization that runs the Questing game. And the quests Jen loves are about to put both of them in grave danger.
Will Jen survive the game before powerful forces cut her real life short?

Guild of Tokens is a thrilling new twist on conventional urban fantasy. If you like determined heroines, gritty cityscapes, and vampire-free adventures, then you'll love Jon Auerbach's rollercoaster tale. Buy Guild of Tokens to roll into an action-packed quest today!

Today, I’m so very late for ensuring this post for Guild of Tokens goes live but I’m alive and happy to be joining with some other fantastic blogs talk about Jon Auerbach’s Guild of Tokens! As always, make sure to stop by some of the other blog stops (Tour Schedule) Don’t forget to sign up for the giveaway below! Thank you to |Storytellers on Tour| and Jon Auerbach for the review copy.

Guild of Tokens was an intriguing blend of urban fantasy and litRPG bordering on dark at a fairly quick pace. The author ensures readers are just as lost as Jen when she receives a mysterious message about questing for tokens. Auerbach wastes no time whisking readers about NYC, giving glimpses of the darker side of what should be a fairly innocuous… game? Lifestyle? I still don’t know and I’ve been marinating on this review for a week and a half.

The timeline jumps a bit but readers primarily follow Jen and her efforts to gain tokens until she stumbles on something bigger. Cut to betrayals, a bit of coercion, unlikely duos, and a shadowy organization. While the plot confused me a bit, I thoroughly enjoyed the morally grey characters and watching Jen struggle to find her own balance as her understanding of the world sharpens. Beatrice was my favorite by far and I absolutely plan on circling back to read her origin novella.

I struggled to connect with Jen and the transition from a typical contemporary world to the pseudo-video game set up. I’ve read plenty of urban fantasy and some litRPGs. Reading a story that lurks about on that edge of what I expect from my litRPGs almost broke my brain a bit. Clearly, this style ended with some of the plot and world-building getting lost in translation for me. The good news: I’m positive this is an issue of me being unable to wrap my head around a concept. I have no doubt that other readers that spend more time reading various forms of fantasy won’t have an issue. I remain on the fence regarding Jen. I didn’t connect with her, but I also didn’t hate her.

I’m still not sure what I truly think about Jen’s story and the Guild. I’m fairly certain Auerbach’s storytelling knocked something loose in my head and I’m going to need to convince Mr. B to read it so I have someone to talk with.

**I voluntarily read and reviewed a review copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

About Jon Auerbach

Jon Auerbach’s love of fantasy began at the tender age of six, when his parents bought him the classic 1977 animated version of The Hobbit (the less said about the recent trilogy, the better). His passion for sci-fi developed from nights watching Star Trek: The Next Generation and from his dad’s old paperback copies of Foundation and I, Robot.

Jon writes in both genres and hopes to pass on his stories to the next generation, including his kids, who have their own copy of The Hobbit that they lovingly call “the Bilbo book.”