Hollow Twilight - by Kieran Starovsky (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

It's all fun and games until somebody dies. Delve into the unsettling world of Hollow Twilight, a Ready Player One meets Stranger Things LitRPG where there's no XP to collect and no loot to scavenge, but one wrong move could be the difference between life and death.

Reid, a seemingly average high school senior, is bored of his meaningless life. That is, until he and his friends learn about a new mobile game, Hollow Twilight, and decide to give it a shot. But what starts as a strangely immersive dark fantasy RPG turns out to be far more as the teens realize they've literally crossed over into the game world and must now fight the shadowy monsters hunting them with no clear understanding of how to survive.

It's do or die for the group, which is par for the course in video games. But in Hollow Twilight, to die doesn't just mean an inconvenient respawn, and when one of their party members is killed by a vicious monster known as a Pariah, it results in their real-life death.

Addicted to mastering the dark power he's been assigned--while ignoring the voice in his head that comes with it--Reid is caught between his desire to keep playing and the very real possibility that he could die if he does. But can he find a way to protect his friends and defeat the Pariahs? The alternative is a return to the mundane life of a nobody, and that just might be more than he can bear.

Review Quotes

"A tense introduction to the LitRPG genre, where strong characters and good storytelling anchor the story." --Tao Wong, author of the A Thousand Li series

About the Author

KIERAN STAROVSKY works in the Toronto start-up space, has a degree in English Literature from York University, and wanders the city with his wife and children. When not writing, he is usually scouring specialty stores for old video games he owned once as a kid.