About

Cleaver's Edge and Into the Fire are the first two books in the Morcster Chef series written by Actus.

Morcster Chef book covers

Blurb

Adventurers flock to massive crypts brimming with riches.... Heroes storm the gates of dark fortresses... Gods clash over the fate of the realm itself....

Arek cooks lasagna, and tops it with a dash of finely chopped basil.

An orc who has seen more than his fair amount of fighting, Arek wants nothing more than to spend the rest of his days cooking and away from the chaos of combat.

However, when Ming and her group of adventurers hire him as their full-time chef, his plans of avoiding violence crumble. He longs to leave his blood-soaked mistakes in his past, but old friends and foes have different ideas.

Review

Cleaver's Edge

Having read and enjoyed one of author's previous work "Heir to Insanity", I was looking forward to get started with this series that promised to be a light hearted fun. And it delivered nicely on that count.

The various cooking bets and recipes were a blast to read. Even though I'm a vegetarian, I could easily imagine the pleasure of eating good food.

Apart from all the cooking, this is a dungeon based adventure book too. Arek gets recruited to cook for an adventure team and I loved their powers and dynamic. I especially liked Ming's character, reminded me of Lift from Stormlight Archives. Plenty of humor sprinkled throughout the book as well.

Stat sheets were small and came into play only a few times. Overall, a fun and enjoyable read. Looking forward to the sequel.

Into the Fire

This book roughly had three parts: continuation from the end of first book and two new locations. Both the new locations were cool in their own different ways - a city atop a mountain and a group of floating islands popular for vacations. The cooking and adventurous stuff continued to be an engaging combo. And Ming continued to be my favorite character.

While the series as a whole leans towards light hearted fun so far, the plot seems to be moving towards a larger conflict.

My rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟☆

What others are saying

From A.R's review on goodreads:

I am a huge fan of cooking manga, like food wars, and this novel really hit the spot. It claims to be a litrpg, but those elements are very light. There is some action, but lost of it takes place in the kitchen! The cast is hilarious, and the audiobook is well done. Seriously, this book will inspire you to get cooking!

From Bender's review on goodreads:

The saga of Happy Sunflowers rolls on as they somehow attract adventures and enemies far more powerful than them. Being forced to "travel for health" they still end up in middle of a monster surge with their past enemies nipping at their heels. We get to see some backstory of Arek and Ming coming back to haunt them fleshing them out as characters more deeply. The action is crisp, pacing is excellent and as usual, we get to read some excellent recipes and imagine those drool-worthy dishes!

Bingo

/r/Fantasy/ 2022 bingo categories:

  • Cool Weapon
  • Published in 2022 (Into the Fire)
  • Non-Human Protagonist
  • Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey
    • magical ability used in cooking a few times, not sure if that counts
  • Self-Published OR Indie Publisher
  • No Ifs, Ands, or Buts (Cleaver's Edge)