The Third Gambit

Order’s Last Play, Book 2

By: E. Ardell

Narrated by: Maxwell Glick

Lines about "prophecy" and "destiny" are best used in epic fantasies about heroes who like to wear capes. Too bad the living gods rolling the dice in this game forgot to include those characters.

After saving their older brother, Evan, and being forced to leave the lives they knew on Earth, Devon, Lyle, and Lawrence train to become the leaders of Rema—a planet they've never even heard of. And if that isn’t enough, they also have to rebuild a relationship with the brother they haven't seen in over a decade as they struggle to control powers they didn't hone on Earth. All so they can become the prophesied Four of Rema—whose choices will decide the outcome of an intergalactic war.

Separated and sent on quests to find power-magnifying gifts from a goddess, the Laudue, the brothers uncover devastating truths behind the war that lock the existence of everything they love in a deadly game of divine jeopardy. As they watch entire planets and their populations get eradicated, Devon, Lyle, Lawrence, and Evan must choose to either play the roles assigned to them by Order or be erased from existence with everything else.

©2021 Eboni Ardell Harris (P)2023 Eboni Ardell Harris

Amazing continuation to the story!

This book picks up right where we left off before, taking our three brothers on their quests to get their stones. I greatly enjoyed getting to know Evan more as well, since he has a lot of POV now, This book takes the original stakes of "Oh shizz I gotta leave Earth and be a leader" and amps it up to "Oh shizz my choices can cost soooo many lives!" Ardell also builds in a lot of GREAT "are we really the good guys here?" foreshadowing for the next book. I am interested to see what happens next.

I enjoyed the narrator. I read the physical book before the audio, so some name pronunciations sound odd to me, but the narrator does a good job of distinguishing character voices and bringing across both humor and drama. There are several "internal" voice moments that I think he does a good job capturing with voice that are more clearly laid out on paper with italics and things like that.