A New Path: The Giseria Chronicles Book 1 Paperback – November 18, 2020

I enjoyed the story, even though there were a couple of parts that didn't mesh as well. Nothing major, but the way the main character's father interacts with the second son of a noble felt a little forced. This was one conversation early on and it is largely inconsequential, so it's not a big deal for me.Minor things like this aside, I enjoyed the character development and the way the fights were written. There's romance, action, adventure, and even a little crafting thrown in (though very little details). I'm looking forward to seeing where the series goes.Some of the reviews are critical of this book for not being sufficiently realistic. Aside from typical fantasy elements like magic, beast folk, and other fantasy races there are elements of this book that don't seem realistic in comparison to our society.All I can say is that comparing a fantasy world to ours is misguided at best. Sure, those characters won't react in the same way we would, but they live a different life so complaining about a fantasy book having unrealistic elements is a bit silly to me.

First, this is a really good storyline, with some pretty good secondary character development. But oh man, the syntax, spelling, dropped sentences and dangling phrases are awful and plentiful. Plus the author uses 21st century wording and comparisons. I mean in a swords and magic environment, it was pretty surprising to read the hero 'takes off like a bullet'. A bullet? I mean really !The story starts off pretty rough with an amateurish beginning reading like a 7th grader's essay. But, give it a chance. By the second chapter I was cursing his horrible writing style but truly getting into the storyline. Bottom line, give it a chance. I bet the second book does a better job in the writing department, and Xander Jade is definitely going someplace with the plot and story. All in all, this is a good read and I wholeheartedly recommend it.

This is like a great movie that had a terrible ad campaign and a mediocre trailer. The synopsis does not do it justice and I was super skeptical after reading the first paragraph, it read a little strange because of the tenses and I wasn’t sure if this was translated, but after that initial paragraph turns out I couldn’t put the book down! The MC is very likeable and doesn’t all of sudden become OP despite what the back of the book says, he goes through some stuff. The best part of the book is the character development, it’s gradual and the nuances of the interactions of the numerous amazing ladies is actually fantastic. They are unique and all bring something to the table, I was so pleasantly surprised by this book and I am very much looking forward to the next installment.

This is an excellent beginning to, I hope, a very good story. There were a few places where I felt a lack of detail, some info where the author seemed to assume we know what is happening around the MC but puts off giving info. But I only found one typo and for similar books is a very good measuring stick of the quality we can expect from Jade taking forward.

Part of me wanted to give this book 1 star, and part of me wanted to give it 5 stars. I settled on 3 stars.The Good:The story actually sucks you in as it goes on. For all the negatives I list below, I still want to read the next book, and that has to reflect positively on the base ability of the author. The story has an overpowered mega-Chad in the making, but those can be fun if done well (it also doesn't hurt that the author blatantly tells you the MC is overpowered). I'm also a bit of a sucker for snark, and there is enough of that in some of the characters to entertain me. Also, I like the MC's attitude. All in all, I can see room for growth for the author.The Bad:Dear heavens, someone please find this author a good editor and some alpha readers. I'll have to just bullet point these issues:- The author does this weird switch between 1st-person storyteller and 3rd-person narrator at various points, but these switches happen right in the middle of chapters with no indicator of it happening. It usually happens when the author wants to dump a bunch of facts on you at once. It happened right out at the start of the book with the first paragraph or two. Just a bunch of 3rd-person sentences in an info dump, then right into the MC's perspective.- On a related note, the book does not flow very well. You'll get into the story, then something will jerk you up short. This usually came in the form of one of those weird perspective changes (only in the narration, not the actual story perspective) or the author just jumping time in a very jerky sort of way. Poor word choice, bad spelling, or bad editing also were culprits for this.- Use of paragraphs and formatting needs to improve dramatically. There are times when an entire page is nothing but a literal wall of text. The whole page, and not a single paragraph to be found.- The word the author was searching for several times during the book was "cue". For some unknown reason, the author went with "que" as some sort of homonym instead of using the correct word. Again, for the love of god, you need a good editor to help you polish this up.- Too many of the girls that end up in the harem have almost no interaction with the MC. They just are there and then boom, in the harem they go. Why? The author doesn't give us much more than lip service or very superficial interaction with the MC. One of the two first girls barely has more than "you saved me, I don't trust men, but you were nice to me" and boom, she's fine with being in his harem. A good 3-4 of the other girls have as little or even less than that.To be fair, that last criticism is a very common one in HaremLit today. Too many authors just throw girls into the harem just for the sake of numbers or however else they justify it. I'd just rather you spend some time on the characters and get us to believe they have a brain in their skull before sending them down the "he's a strong male, I must be his mate" route.That was quite a few negatives, but I do believe most of this comes down to author inexperience. There is potential here for the author to learn and get better. A quality editor and some reliable alpha readers to pick and poke at story choices will go a long way from turning an author with potential into a good author. Hopefully this is taken in the constructive way it is meant, and I hope to see another of these books soon.

There is a lot of good things in this story. A strong main character with a sense of justice and fairness. I had a lot of fun reading about the humorous things that happened to him and that he does. This book has two parts to it. The first part is about him growing up and a little bit about the world around him. The second part segways to him being 19 and chosen by the gods of this world to protect it from an evil. This is a good sword and sorcery story but in the last half it has elements of modern ideas and phrases which kind of threw me off a little bit but does not detract from the story. I really enjoyed this book and hope to read the second one soon.

Loved this book 1 in a new series about a hero for the ages. He matures a bit by the end of the book from a stumbling teen to a bit of a rogue but still very lovable-especially so to his team mates who just can’t keep their eyes-and hands off him.Impatiently waiting for book 2......

I like stories like this, there is a good story line and just enough sex to keep reading, At first I did not think I was going to like it but now I am reading book two and hoping there is a book three soon

This started off well and continues to grow the characters. I truly enjoyed the flow and the storyline. Love the MC, sometimes he made me giggle with the situation he gets into.Can't wait for the next book!5*****

Way to go . Author has brought in many characters and beautifully dealt with introduction and did not waste any words anywhere in displaying the events. Just some spelling mistakes which I don’t mind at all.

Glad I happened on this author. If you like shape changers, magic, fighting, fantasy’s and harem stories this is one that you should look at. Good story as well and I would expect more to follow. Happy reading people.