Tag: author Beatrix Penrose

Review:  The Amber Hops: A Retired Paladin’s Guide to Magical Brewing (A Cozy LitRPG Adventure) (The Green Sanctuary Book 2) by Beatrix Penrose 

Rating: 4.5⭐️

The Green Sanctuary series is written by Beatrix Penrose, an author who has become a favorite of mine recently. 

This cozy LitRPG fantasy series is engaging and fun, each book short and satisfying. 

In The Amber Hops, our retired Paladin, Sir Alaric Thorne has managed to save the day but more drama awaits him and his newly established farm. 

It’s magical hops, inter dimensional visitors and tax drama on the horizon! All great fun woven together with new characters and light suspense. 

It’s highly enjoyable, well written and easy to pick up and read through. 

A terrific story and absolutely my recommendation!

Love the cover and wish I knew more about the artist. 

The Green Sanctuary (8 book series)

Smite the Soil #1

The Amber Hops #2

The Wandering Grove #3

The Winter of the Void #4

Smite the Soil: The Seed of Generations #5

Smite the Soil: The Roots of Rebellion #6

Smite the Soil: The Ashen Harvest #7

Smite the Soil: The Sky-High Vineyard #8

Buy link 

        The Amber Hops: A Retired Paladin’s Guide to Magical Brewing (A Cozy LitRPG Adventure) (The Green Sanctuary Book 2)

    

Blurb 

Sir Alaric Thorne saved the farm. Now, he has to save the party.

After successfully smiting the blight and telling the Empire to shove their taxes, Alaric just wanted a quiet season to watch his World-Tree grow. But the tree has other plans. It’s produced a crop of Amber Hops—glowing, vibrating cones of starlight that make a beer so good it literally attracts tourists from other dimensions.

Welcome to the Root & Radiance.

With a grumpy Dryad as his brewmaster and a crew of Dwarven masons building a tavern out of Deep-Earth marble, Alaric is no longer just a farmer. He’s a publican. But running a sanctuary isn’t all sunshine and sourdough.

Between an Imperial Auditor looking for an excuse to salt the earth and a Fae Queen who wants to “borrow” the World-Tree forever, Alaric is going to need more than just a legendary spade.

He’s going to need the perfect brew.

What to expect in Book 2:

  • Tavern Management: Watch the Root & Radiance grow from a dusty barn to a multi-dimensional hub.
  • Advanced Crafting: Deep dives into magical fermentation, Void-forging, and “Soil Editing.”
  • New Allies: Meet Iron-Side the Pacifist War-Golem and Vex the Shadow-Miner.
  • Goliath being Goliath: Our favorite teleporting goat has reached Level 5 and developed a taste for temporal pancakes.

Grab your mug and pull up a chair. The harvest is just getting started.

January 31, 2026

Language

‎English

Print length

58 pages

Book 2 of 15

The Green Sanctuary

Review: Last Boss Farm: The Conditions Book 3 by Beatrix Penrose 

Rating: 4.5⭐️

it’s absolutely amazing how much quiet emotion and beauty fills her 42 pages of this finale story. 

Last Boss Farm, the tale of how Malgrath the Undying, the world’s oldest villain successfully managed to retire from the System and become the the world’s first Keeper, is a tale of quiet life, daily observations of those around him, using his long accumulated knowledge and wisdom but towards different goals. Renovating a rescue farm and building a new life for himself and those around him, including the creatures who come in need of help and a sanctuary. 

It’s incredible that Penrose builds deeply believable characters and a farm location that grows in structures and detail throughout the series with such a small number of pages. But she creates a narrative that brings a sustainable heartwarming atmosphere and a suspense that makes the reader feel so connected to the lives of those on the farm, not just Malgrath but those who were there and have become family and those who journeyed and found themselves at the farm the home they were looking for. 

That ending is so satisfying. Full of heart and hope. Looking forward to the future for everyone. 

This series could easily be read in one hour. But it’s so quietly written, it sneaks up on you. Do yourself a favor, savor it, stretch it out. And absolutely enjoy The Last Boss Farm. 

Author Beatrix Penrose has become an auto must have for me. 

Last Boss Farm (3 book series):

Last Boss Farm #1

The Stranger Problem #2

The Conditions #3

Love the covers.

Buy link

        Last Boss Farm: The Conditions

    

Blurb 

The vote passed. He wished it had been simpler.

The World System’s Policy Committee has ratified the KEEPER classification. Malgrath the Undying is, officially and permanently, the world’s first Keeper. 

There are eleven pages of conditions.

Most of them are reasonable. One requires him to name a registered property manager — someone the System can contact when he isn’t available. One allows other Legendary Villains to apply for the KEEPER designation, with his sponsorship.

He hadn’t anticipated sponsorship.

Then Thessaly the Unmoved arrives at the gate. Three hundred and twelve years as a Curse Weaver. Six active generational curses she has been trying to end for decades, with no System category that would let her stop. She walks through the gate without hesitating. The Strategist doesn’t move.

Vera returns to process the paperwork. Lorn takes six days to decide about Thessaly. Hobb builds a bench in the south field without telling anyone. The spring welfare reports come back full Thriving — every resident, first time in the database.

The Conditions is the third book in the Last Boss Farm series — a LitRPG cozy fantasy about what happens after you win the bureaucratic argument, a second Legendary Villain who just needed someone to put their name on a form, and a World System that is, slowly and against its better judgement, learning to say well done.

The KEEPER Network currently has one member. The System considers this a beginning, not a limitation.

April 21, 2026

Language

‎English

Print length

42 pages

Book 3 of 3

Last Boss Farm

Review: Last Boss Farm: The Stranger Problem 2 by Beatrix Penrose 

Rating: 4.5⭐️

  

“The World System has a Legendary Villain. The Legendary Villain has quit.”

Just a beautiful little story. Multiple important characters and storylines being woven together within a short time frame, each dealing with deep themes and emotional issues. 

All within 42 pages. 

Once again, the World System has sent out a visitor to the Farm. This time it’s Sera of Velmoor , a World Class Hero. Her mission is to evaluate the farm and check/perhaps bring back Edric, the first hero who came and stayed, refusing to leave. 

 But once Sera arrives, much like the others, things and plans change. 

There are some lovely surprises, exploration of the farm and the way the new creature, Lorn, is introduced, is also a metaphor for larger aspects of life around them. 

Even the smallest of details and developments are gems here, in the many languages that the guests speak and the hints to their personal journeys, the reader’s imagination remain intrigued.

A wonderful story and highly recommended. 

 

Last Boss Farm (3 book series):

Last Boss Farm #1

The Stranger Problem #2

The Conditions #3

Love the covers.

Buy link

        Last Boss Farm: The Stranger Problem

    

Blurb 

The System sent a Hero to retrieve him. She stayed for a week. The Vael stayed permanently.

Malgrath the Undying is fifty-nine days from the World System’s Policy Committee vote on his KEEPER classification. The sanctuary is functioning. The slimes are contained. The Domestic Competency bar is at C+.

Then the System dispatches Sera of Velmoor — Sable-class Hero, level 41, and the one person most likely to actually bring Edric home.

She arrives thorough, efficient, and ready to file an accurate report. The problem is that accuracy, in this case, keeps pointing in an inconvenient direction. There are three creatures rated Thriving. The cave trolls built a drainage system she can’t fault. A retired Legendary Villain is leaving food at the tree line every morning for something large and injured that is watching from the forest.

The something large and injured is watching back.

The Stranger Problem is the second book in the Last Boss Farm series — a LitRPG cozy fantasy about a Vael who came down from the mountains in winter, a Hero who filed a very inconvenient witness statement, and a sanctuary that keeps accumulating residents nobody planned for.

The geese remain unkillable. The System has invented a rank called C++. Things are, on balance, fine.

April 21, 2026

Language

‎English

Print length

42 pages

Book 2 of 3

Last Boss Farm

Review: Last Boss Farm (Last Boss Farm Book 1) by Beatrix Penrose

Rating: 4⭐️

Beatrix Penrose is a recent discovery for me and I have found I absolutely love her range of characters and fiction stories, from lyrical storytelling to the entertainment found here in her cozy LitRPG fantasy tale. 

Last Boss Farm is a terrific novella, a fantasy LitRPG that’s heavily based in the game trope if you’re not familiar with the LitRPG genre. So character are known by their stats, gameplay levels and rules. 

However, Penrose has her characters decline to play by the rules and set their own course, a decision that is entertaining and makes for an engaging experience.

While short, the characters are well designed and easy to connect with. And become extremely fond of. I want more of them and where this series is taking them and us. 

It’s fun, quick and well crafted. 

Highly recommended for anyone who enjoys this type of fiction. 

Last Boss Farm (3 book series):

Last Boss Farm #1

The Stranger Problem #2

The Conditions #3

Love the covers.

Buy link

 Book 1 of 3: Last Boss Farm 

Blurb 

He built three apocalypses. He can’t fix the slime pen.

Malgrath the Undying was the World System’s greatest villain. Legendary designation. Maxed stats. Nine lives of civilisational ruin. When he finally decided he’d had enough, he didn’t go out in a blaze of glory — he filed retirement paperwork, bought a derelict monster sanctuary, and went to feed an injured wyvern.

The System is not handling this well.

Every morning, a new villain quest appears in his notification queue. Every morning, he presses DECLINE and goes to deal with whatever the slimes have escaped into this time. 

But the System doesn’t accept “retired” as a status, and it has options: a confused Hero dispatched to defeat him, a Villain Reassignment Officer sent to reclaim him, and an escalating stack of administrative notices that are becoming increasingly passive-aggressive.

None of this is as difficult as figuring out why the rosemary keeps dying.

Last Boss Farm is a LitRPG cozy fantasy about a man with maxed Intimidation stats and a C+ in Domestic Competency, a wyvern who steals lunch, cave trolls who build surprisingly good retaining walls, and a World System bureaucracy that is deeply, personally offended by someone refusing their role.

Perfect for fans of cozy fantasy, progression fiction, and stories where the most dangerous character is the one who has simply decided to stop.

April 21, 2026

Language

‎English

Print length

43 pages

Book 1 of 3

Last Boss Farm

Review: The Lighthouse Keeper’s Last Letter by Beatrix Penrose

Rating: 5⭐️ plus 

It was the description and cover that led me to this incredible book, one of those stories that stick with you, a novel that you tuck into pockets and journeys with you, wherever you go. 

I only recently discovered Beatrix Penrose but it still didn’t prepare me for the quiet lyrical truth and beauty of her writing here.  The depths of the narrative and characters found in a tale that is only 58 pages long. But feels like a long dive into a whole world and people we know. 

Luminous. That’s an excellent way to describe this. The journey of Sylvie Carr to a lighthouse at the edge, a small cottage, and something remarkable. 

“And then, one Tuesday in March, she had sat down at her desk and looked at the morning’s work — a collection of correspondence from a Victorian engineer, carefully bundled and awaiting description — and found that she could not begin. Not because the work was uninteresting. Because something in her had simply stopped, the way a watch stops, without drama or announcement, somewhere between one tick and the next.”

Archivist Sylvie Carr takes leave of absence. And through a series of unlikely circumstances, ends up at a decommissioned lighthouse inherited by her Aunt Rosalind. 

I have read this three times now and have found different elements that delight me or aspects of the story that I hadn’t thought of before that digs deep.

I love it so much. It’s books and discoveries like this that make me love reading and uncovering new authors! New find added to my hoard!

Buy link

The Lighthouse Keeper’s Last Letter

Blurb 

When Sylvie Carr, a burned-out archivist, inherits a decommissioned lighthouse on the North Yorkshire coast, she finds a letter on the mantelpiece addressed to her — written in 1947, before she was born.

The ghost of Callum Stroud has been keeper of Dunmore Light for over a century. In life, he wrote hundreds of letters to people in grief, people at crossroads, people who needed a fixed point in the dark. But seven letters he could never finish. Seven people he couldn’t find the words for. And until those letters are complete, he cannot rest.

Sylvie is an archivist. She has spent her career preserving what others made and said and felt. Now, at the edge of the land and the sea, she finally has something of her own to keep.

A warm, quietly luminous story about letters, lighthouses, and the people who stay at the edge of things.

Set in the same world as The Bookshop at the Edge of the Afterlife.

April 16, 2026

Language

‎English

Print length

58 pages

Review: Smite the Soil: A Retired Paladin’s Guide to Magical Agriculture (A Cozy LitRPG Adventure) (The Green Sanctuary Book 1) by Beatrix Penrose

Rating: 4.5⭐️

Smite the Soil, the first book in The Green Sanctuary fantasy series by Beatrix Penrose, is a heartwarming, well written novella. It’s a story that beautifully lays out the characters, unique universe and is a perfect introduction to any reader unfamiliar with LitRPG storytelling.

The tale of Sir Alaric Thorne, of the many celestial titles is wonderfully detailed and heartfelt. Al, as he decides to be known, doesn’t want to Ascend and become a minor deity after defeating all the quests. He’s tired. Wants to put down his sword. 

So he decides to find a different path. The Green Hearth. And starts a new journey. 

As a farmer and level 1 Celestial Husbandman. That comes with a rundown farm, land that doesn’t grow anything and a decidedly ornery goat named Goliath.

There’s also a community full of good people nearby that’s in dire straits. 

Step by step, Al and the village of Oakhaven come together as a community. It’s leveling up by means of heartfelt support and encouragement by goat, small children and a variety of other otherworldly friends. 

It is a quick read and sets the story for the next book and events to follow. 

A terrific read and recommendation!

Love the cover and wish I knew more about the artist. 

The Green Sanctuary (8 book series)

Smite the Soil #1

The Amber Hops #2

The Wandering Grove #3

The Winter of the Void #4

Smite the Soil: The Seed of Generations #5

Smite the Soil: The Roots of Rebellion #6

Smite the Soil: The Ashen Harvest #7

Smite the Soil: The Sky-High Vineyard #8

Buy link 

 Book 1 of 8: The Green Sanctuary 

Blurb 

He was the Shield of the Empire. Now, he’s just trying to grow a decent tomato.

Sir Alaric Thorne is tired. After twenty years of smiting demons and saving the world, his back hurts, his armor is heavy, and he’s forgotten the smell of fresh air that isn’t tainted by sulfur. So, when the System offers him a “Hidden Path” to retirement, he takes it.

He trades his Holy Avenger sword for a rusty hoe.

But Oakhaven Farm isn’t the paradise he imagined. The soil is cursed, the local village is starving, and his only companion is a Level 3 Chaos Goat named Goliath who has a taste for legal documents.

To save his new home, Alaric must level up his [Husbandman] class, navigate a “System” that rewards [Caprine Diplomacy] over [Combat Prowess], and protect a World-Tree sapling from an Empire that wants its taxes in blood.

In Oakhaven, the weeds are the real monsters, and the greatest quest of all is finding the perfect fertilizer.

What to expect:

  • No Harem/No Stress: A wholesome, “warm blanket” of a story.
  • Crunchy Stats: Watch the numbers go up in Soil Quality, Crop Resilience, and Animal Kinship.
  • Zero-to-Hero (Again): A powerful protagonist learning that growing a life is harder than taking one.
  • Stardew Valley Vibes: Farming, crafting, and building a community from the ground up.

January 30, 2026

Language

‎English

Print length

102 pages

Book 1 of 8

The Green Sanctuary