Hello, Friday Fiction fans! I’d like to talk about a great series I finished by Aaron D. Gansky, The Hand of Adonai novels. To me, they combined fantasy, superhero-like characters, and video games to create a fantasy world different from most I read. I enjoyed the way he navigates the reader between worlds and characters and the plot is intricate but not too hard to follow. Gansky doesn’t have the latter books numbered so I’ll share below in order of publication. These books are clean but graphic in the battle descriptions.

Click to tweet: Friday Fiction: Books From Off the Beaten Track. The Hand of Adonai series by Aaron D. Gansky. Combining fantasy, superhero-like characters, and video games to create a fantasy world different than most. #FridayReads #Fantasy

The Book of Things to Come

At first, seventeen-year-old Lauren Knowles is thrilled to wake up in Alrujah—a digital fantasy world she created with her best friend, Oliver Shaw—but the exhilaration of serving as a magical princess in her own video game fades as she senses a demonic force lurking in the shadows. Though they designed a world of wondrous beauty—blue-leaf forests, shimmering silver rivers, and expansive medieval castles—Lauren and Oliver soon find their secret realm to be an ever-changing land of dark oppression and deadly sorcery. With the help of Aiden Price and Erica Hall, fellow gamers from their high school in North Chester, the four teens must find a way out—a way that can only be discerned from the dusty pages of the ancient leather-bound tome, the Book of Thing to Come. Faced with questionable allies, invisible enemies, and increasingly dangerous levels of difficulty, the four must learn to forge alliances, battle side by side, or stay forever lost.

The Blood Sword

Soon after their defeat of the abomination Belphegor, the Hand must turn their attention to the Blood Sword, an ancient, cursed blade. Securing the deadly artifact is the next step in their quest to find a way back to their home in North Chester. But the task is far from easy. Erica soon sets out with Ullwen of Varuth, a staunch ally, on a quest to find her parents, leaving the others to search for the blade on their own.

The search for the Blood Sword eventually leads the Hand to Yarborugh, the Nameless Heir, a drunken half-dwarf, and Langley of Errul, a contentious half-elf politician. Together, the group of five plumb the depths of an ancient elf military post crawling with corpses to attain the cursed blade. Meanwhile, Erica and Ullwen must find a way to infiltrate Alrujah, a city that shares the paranoia of its ailing king. As animate statues wield terrifying magic, the group faces certain death.

Shadow Assassin

Shadow Singer is as beautiful as she is mysterious and savage. Despite her assurances that she means Oliver Shaw no harm, he has his doubts. After all, she did knock him out and kidnap him, taking him away from friends who desperately needed his help.

But when she takes him back to her homeworld of Myrassa, Oliver realizes the complications she’ll introduce to him are just the beginning. Like her, Myrassa is characterized by deep beauty and deeper savagery. With only this assassin as his guide, Oliver must navigate morally murky water and find a way to preserve his faith when confronted with incredible odds. Can he be the hero Myrassa needs, or will he lose himself in the bloody politics of a world governed by evil? And can he do it in time to return to Alrujah to defend his friends from the evils they face without him?

The Seven Seals

Since she woke up in Alrujah, a digital world of her design, Lauren Knowles has been fighting for her life. And now, just when things seemed the most bleak, her best friend Oliver has vanished. Together with her sister Bailey Renee, Lauren must embark on another perilous journey to defend herself and save her friends.

But the task is not easy, and the seals between the worlds weaken. When Aiden and Lauren find themselves back home, they must make a life-changing decision: stay where it’s safe or return to Alrujah to protect the people from evil and hope to bring their other friends home.

Erica, too, finds herself back in North Chester, a terrifying prospect for her, and face to face with the father who burned her hands.

All Alrujah darkens under the shadows of three terrifying abominations, all of which must be defeated if the teens ever want to get back home for good. But can they handle the Abominations when the Hand is scattered?

Rise of Shedoah

Three worlds face destruction. Only the Hand of Adonai can stop the coming evils. Oliver and Lauren could not have dreamed they’d be magically transported into the fantasy video game they’d created. Neither could they have imagined that they, along with their friends, would be called upon to save not one, but three worlds. With the abominations defeated, new evils rise on the horizon—Dagon and Ontus, powerful beasts of destruction herald the coming of the scourge of the great dragon Shedoah. His coming has already tainted the minds of countless armies and spread disease and famine and flood across the land. But he will not stop until he has subjugated Alrujah, Myrassa, and even Earth to his will. Now, scattered across the worlds and weakened from unceasing battles, the Hand of Adonai must reunite to defeat the looming beasts that threaten the worlds before they can face the might of Shedoah.

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