I absolutely loved the first book of this series, but I had issues with this one. It was very slow and quite boring and I just couldn't get into it. I don't like to DNF ARC's, but I felt like I had to with this one. I actually tried to get into this a few times and just couldn't.

Although I finished this book for a while, I had to let my temper cool down first before giving a review.
Overall, the book was a fast pace action driven joy ride. Kali is back with her team and they are again going for that impossible shinny trophy and serious cash. The created world is still interesting for me, and the characters still holds my attention.
Kali, having read the first book, is going to be that cookie cut character who will come in swaggering, fail and then wallows in self doubt and indecision and wallow in more self doubt and then whines then somehow manage to win by a hair.
I think her flair on the first book wore on me this time because it’s just a repeat performance.

A year ago Kali Ling was the first female captain in the Virtual Gaming League’s history. Now she’s the youngest ever team owner. With a new tournament starting up, pitting the best gamers in the world against each other, Defiance is definitely on board. But, between the new pods that constantly adapt to players actions and all her new responsibility as team owner, can Kali stick to her convictions or will she wind up being just as bad as the rest of the VGL when the chips are down?

I have issues reviewing this book. That’s one thing I absolutely need to mention first off, because what’s good can be really good. Unfortunately that’s balanced by the fact that what’s bad tends to be really bad. So, let’s get going.

One of the big things with Gauntlet, much like the book before it Arena, is that Holly Jennings tends to do really well with her character stuff. When Kali is interacting with her team there’s this great flow, these are characters who care about and support each other. They work through their issues by talking, and it’s made clear that communication is part of why they work as a team. I love this aspect of the book. I adore that problems get worked through because friendship and communication. But then that’s kind of why I can’t stand the romance between Kali and one of her teammates, Rooke.

Back in Arena, Rooke was brought in to replace one of their other teammates. He was new and hot and kind of a jerk, so obviously he’s the love interest. It felt under developed then. In this book though we start off with the relationship reset, Rooke has cut Kali out and left the team with no explanation. He did it for her own good, so he says, which immediately loses my interest. It feels like a lot of the Kali and Rooke working things out got cut in an earlier draft and was only left in so that she would be as off balance as possible at the beginning of the book. There was a lot of really self pitying stuff from Kali regarding how she’d been just as bad to him last year that just didn’t really pan. I could have done with a lot less of it, especially since the whole Kali and Rooke thing feels like Jennings was told she had to have a love interest in there somewhere.

Gauntlet can also feel very scattered. At first the deal is that Rooke fell off the wagon and what if he can’t sort things out. Add to that Kali not being able to balance leading the team and doing her job as the team owner. Add to that the tournament itself and something being off about it. Add to that the team being attacked in the tabloids. Add to that Kali still wants to fight corruption in the VGL and do what’s best for her teammates. It can alternate between feeling like there are three different plots that never really go anywhere and feeling like everything is happening at once. A lot of that could have been cleaned up by removing repetition and focusing more on the tournament itself and any single one of the other problems. There was a lot of repetition, mostly things that the reader really shouldn’t have needed to be reminded of like Kali worrying about doing what’s best for the team.

I would have personally loved to see more of the tournament itself. Jennings does a great job with her action scenes and, with the core idea the book is being sold on being a massive tournament, I feel like going more into the game itself would have been an excellent choice. It’s hard to overstate how much I like the fight scenes here. They feel visceral and epic. They’re the place where the characters are in both the most and least amount of danger and that lends them an interesting weight that a lot of the rest of the book lacks. The fights feel a lot like a well done boss fight. They feel like Defiance is up against the wall.

When we finally get the big fight scenes it’s, of course, near the climax of the book. So, it’s actually kind of fitting that my last issue with Gauntlet is with its ending. There were a couple of places where it would have felt really natural to end Gauntlet. They would have been solid and left it open for the next book without feeling like an ad for it. The author went past both of those and just went ahead and set up book three. My issue with this is twofold. One, it gives up a more solid satisfying ending for a much weaker one. Two, it makes the rest of the book feel like less. Suddenly it feels like reaching the end of a game and finding out that the ending it paid DLC. It feels like there is less point to Gauntlet because here’s this cliffhanger that steals this book’s resolution for another book’s beginning.

So, where’s that leave Gauntlet? A big part of my issue with reviewing Gauntlet is that the stuff I didn’t enjoy made me dislike that I enjoyed the stuff I did. For every time there was a scene of Defiance being a great team and friends and just really jiving well together, I remembered that Kali and Rooke didn’t have that for their scenes as a couple. For every awesome fight, there were a bunch of other scenes that felt like repetition for the sake of padding. For all that I really enjoyed the bulk of the book, the ending left me feeling like I just discovered that my Little Orphan Annie decoder ring was an ad this whole time.

It’s a decent enough read, and a good sophomore novel. There’re definitely bits that need work. Jennings could certainly tighten up her writing some, get rid of some repetitiveness. But at the end of the day, even with its issues, Gauntlet is a fun read. Frustrating because of the bigger problems, but fun. It’s definitely a three out of five, but I think with a little more time and a couple more books Jennings could be a five star writer.

Most of the book is predictable. The championship in the end had some good twists.
Likes: The twists in the games. Kali growing up a little by the end. She was really immature in the first third of the book that you had to wonder how she even got that far managing the team. She just seemed like a spoiled brat with a lot of money. I almost DNFed the book because I was getting fed up with her. I liked the little insights into the other of the team also. I wish she had expanded on that more.
Dislikes: The whole Taoist/Asian storyline and the whole Los Angeles scene. It just seems very forced and shows very superficial knowledge of the Los Angeles city scene and the North American Asian culture. I wished she had brought in the actual BaGuaZhang exercise into the game instead of just the scenery. Other things that bothered me was while some of the technical advancement were interesting, they were unimaginative. They were just extensions of current innovations and not too far into the future at that, certainly not 2055.
All in all, the book started slow but once the championships started, it went pretty fast.
I think if Ms. Jennings just sticks to writing about gaming and the culture around it instead of trying to incorporate plot lines that she knows little about, her novels would be better. This book was generally well paced once I got over cringing through the first half of the book.

I didn't like this installment as much as I did the first, but it was still very entertaining. I really like how relevant this story is. I can see virtual gaming becoming a sport in the near future and it does frighten me a tad especially after reading this.

For me I wished this book had focused more on the gaming government and less on Kali's stress. Yes her stress was needed and it showed how hard it was being on the boss side, but it took away from what I loved about the first one. I wanted Kali to be stronger than what she was and I was sad that she let so much get to her. And again though I understood her pressures I just wish the author could have kept her strong attitude about it all.

I did like how her friends rallied around her and they did what they needed to to support her. I love the loyalty and it gave the book another level for me.

The story was definitely good especially that end twist. I am really hoping there will a third because that cliffhanger was brutal. Necessary, but brutal!

Overall a good sequel that didn't fall into the dreaded second book syndrome with only minimum problems.

Oh, ouch. Gauntlet. What a disappointment, especially after how much I LOVED Arena.

In the future, 2050-something, the most popular sport in the world is being a professional virtual reality video game player. The players are celebrities and are only as strong in-game as they are in real life. In Gauntlet, Kali Ling has purchased her team, Defiance, to become owner to make life better for her team mates. The first 60% of this book (and I know that because I read it on my kindle) is nothing but her whining and complaining about how hard it is to make decisions and be a team owner. I almost stopped reading so many times. Eventually she gets her shit straightened out, and team Defiance realizes that the VGL (company who runs the games) is out to get them. Meanwhile, a really rich guy invents new pods that they play in to make the game more safe for the players mentally. A new worldwide tournament starts with the winning team taking home 100 billion dollars.

There are so many things wrong with this book aside from the first 60% of it: Team Defiance realistically would not have a serious running in this tournament as they are too inexperienced; I don't feel that the hate that the VGL has for Kali is believable; and there is no way they'd be able to get as far as they did in the championships. TLDR, I guess this book is just not believable in this fantasy world.

My favorite thing about this book is being inside the games as they happen. The author creates a really awesome virtual world and I really enjoyed the game play, I just wish there would have been a different story outline for the book.

2/5 Stars

Kali Ling isn’t afraid of dying. She’s been killed hundreds of times in hundreds of different ways. And she knows there are things much more terrifying than death…

There’s a new game in town. A brutal, winner-takes-all, international video game tournament between the world’s most elite players, promising fame, prestige, and unbelievable fortune. But there’s a catch. The game uses new VR pods guaranteed to push digital warriors to their physical and psychological brink—adapting every time a gamer makes a move.

As the first female captain and youngest team owner in VGL history, Kali is used to defying the odds. But as the all-star tournament heats up, her determination begins to waver and the pressures of media, sponsors, and the game itself begin to put cracks in her hard-set convictions.

If Kali’s Team Defiance is to survive, they’ll have to find a way to be stronger than ever before. But battling the system may prove too difficult for even the most hardened of fighters…



* * * * *



I enjoy reading the occasional science fiction as long as it concentrates more on the people then the science itself. And GAUNTLET does just that and wonderfully.


Kali really shook up the gaming industry when she brought out fact that industry feels that the gamers themselves are expendable. Because of her revelations, a new type of VR pod has been designed which is supposed to be safer for the gamer. And there is a tournament to welcome the new pod.


GAUNTLET focuses on Kali but we also get the chance to really know her team as they work through the challenges thrown their way. They all have hidden strengths and fears that are brought into the limelight during the tournament.


I really think that any of my readers who enjoy character driven sci-fi would love this book and in fact, this series. There is a lot of violence within the game so be forewarned.



*** I received this book at no charge from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review. All opinions expressed within are my own.

**I received a copy of Gauntlet via NetGalley for an honest opinion. No compensation was given.**

Gauntlet is the sequel to Arena. It is set about a year after the events of the first book and shows the difficulty Kali is having as an owner, team captain, and a team member. The first book's main focus (drugs, addiction, and image) makes a reprisal in this book, but I felt it was just to show that our problems will always be a constant battle. Which makes sense.

Our problems don't go away with the first solution. Sometimes we have to fight to keep what we want.

Now, these issues are still important, but they aren't the main focus in this book. There is actually a main antagonist in this book! The missing antagonist wasn't something I cared for in the first bool. So, I was pretty excited to see Kali and co. go against a force that is more than just internal. One that has a lot more power.

I can't give too much away because the book would be ruined. Even though I found it easy to figure out who the main antagonist is, it didn't take away my enjoyment of the book. The action is good, the drama between teammates is realistic, and I found myself rooting for Team Defiance all over again.

The downside? The book ended on a messed up cliffhanger and now I have to wait for a third book to come out. I just hope the virtual underdogs can muster up something amazing!

Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team

Erica – ☆☆☆☆☆
5 I-couldn’t-put-the-book-down stars

After reading Arena about a year ago, I feared being lost at the start of Gauntlet, but the two books flowed together seamlessly, with no confusion to be had.

Without giving away spoilers… what a thrill ride! I was gripped the entire time, feverishly clicking the pages to know what happened next. At the end, I wanted more immediately.

Kali is a strong role model throughout. After making mistakes in Arena, compassionate and fierce Kali is trying to protect her team at all costs. An unknown location surrounded by publicity, catering to professional virtual-gamers, The Wall is in her hometown – at the start of the novel, she tries to figure out how this will affect her and her people, which spirals into the major plot… one I won’t spoil.

As a new team owner, Kali has to deal with political maneuverings, sponsors, image, misbehaving teammates, and the publicity surrounding it all. The very reason she bought a team is slipping through her fingers as she tries to play their game by their rules, losing herself in the process.

As for romance, the gossip-mongers are using false reports to tear Kali and her team apart, but some of the strife comes from within. These situations and emotions were very real, hitting human nature. There was a large thread dealing with the drug HP. One of the closest teammates is addicted, struggling, and Kali has to be the tough-love, refusing to be the enabler after they all lost Nathan in the last installment.

Now, let’s get to the gaming…

WOW. I am beyond impressed at the level of imagination the author uses within Gauntlet. As the reader, I could envision the game arena with lifelike accuracy. Fantasy readers shouldn’t have any issue connecting to this portion. But, for those of us who are gamers, we’ll ‘get’ it and be totally immersed into the heart-pounding action.

With this new ‘development,’ I was unsure whether or not what happened in the arena wouldn’t affect them outside of it. With the political maneuverings targeting Defiance, I wasn’t so sure they’d respawn, wake up in their pods, or just be poof. This lent to a thrill ride of epic proportions.

Recommended: Young adults and the young at heart gamers will appreciate this book. Gamers of all ages who do not read could most likely be swayed into giving it a try, which would most likely turn them into avid readers. When a person doesn’t like to read, it’s usually because they haven’t found the right book to flip that switch in their brains. Parents, if you have gamers kids, I’d give this series a try to see if they will catch the reading bug. Adults who love to read but your partner doesn’t, maybe they’re always playing video games (lol), buy them this book and read it together. While the series is narrated by a female, Kali, she is fierce, flawed, and rational enough to appeal to all genders.

I cannot wait for the next in the series. The next book’s setup in Gauntlet gives me the feeling it’s going to be the most epic of them all.

Young Adult age-range: 12+, depending on the maturity of the reader. Virtual-reality game violence. Mild cussing. Kissing. Fade-to-black sexual situations. Addiction.

This book continues where the first book left off. Kali has bought her first gaming team and is the first female captain ever. It is about her struggling to keep her team afloat. An opportunity of a lifetime comes up for Kali and her team and this book is about this mega world gaming tournament.
Overall I rated this book five out of five stars. This book series keeps getting better and better. I normally find the second book of trilogy's the weakest link, but in this case it is the strongest link. For a Science Fiction/Fantasy series this book is extremely well written and has a lot of depth and character development to it. There are multiple layers to this book. Each layer brought on a different dimension and had multiple surprises. I really liked the sarcastic tone that Kali had telling this story, it definitely added humor into this book. I also loved the meaning that this book brought forward it made this book all that much more worth reading. There are not many books like this these days. We definitely need more of them. Actually we need more Kali's in this world. I also really liked the political side to this book. It fit in real well with the story and added another element to this story. And oh man the cliff hanger at the end, is killing me that I have to wait another year until I can finish this story. I would definitely recommend reading this series so go out and read it. If you need to start on "Arena" the first book you can purchase it by CLICKING HERE.
I would like to thank Netgalley, Holly Jennings, and Berkley Publishing Group for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

That ending! I just want to scream. This book was epic from start to finish. There was so much action, but the story in the middle was just as good. I wanted to root for team Defiance the entire time, hoping that they would win. I can't wait to see whats in story for my favorite gamers.

I posted the below 4-star review on Every Day Should Be Tuesday, Amazon, and Goodreads on April 4, 2017:

I was a big, big fan of Jennings’ debut, Arena. Gauntlet is a helluva ride too. Kali Ling, the Warrior, is back to stab people repeatedly in virtual reality melee. And this time she’s doing it as team owner and in an all-star tournament.

The star of the show is again Kali Ling, and the story is told entirely from her perspective. Arena ended not just with her team winning the RAGE tournament, but with Kali blowing the door open on drug use in professional gaming and becoming the youngest team owner in Virtual Gaming League history.

As the story opens, all eyes are on a mysterious Los Angeles mansion. Gaming teams have been seen entering for weeks. Kali suspects drugs, but when her team’s invitation comes, she discovers a plutocrat who has new and improved virtual reality pods. He wants to unveil them at an all-star tournament, and Kali’s team is invited. They’re in the big leagues now.

As in Arena, the 5-person teams are essentially playing a virtual reality version of capture the flag. An ultra-advanced virtual reality where “your physical self [is] your avatar. The faster, stronger, or more agile you [are] in real life transferred into the game.” Which means getting stabbed with a sword feels like getting stabbed with a sword. It’s a neat trick to give a scifi heroine an excuse to repeatedly go toe-to-toe with opponents, sword in hand. Now, though, the rules change with each match. Kali and her team never know what they will face each time they get into the pods. And, worse, the pods are learning, accessing their thoughts to learn what they fear.

Gauntlet is set in the near future, but Jennings keeps a light touch for the science fiction outside of gaming. E.g., construction is now largely by drone. There are AI programs that engage in identity theft. The family of one of the players made their fortune mining water from asteroids (but for drinking water?). They’re nice touches, if not enough to satiate a hardcore science fiction fan.

Owning a team brings new challenges for Kali. For one, she’s an atrocious manager. She doesn’t even have an assistant to help manage her emails and calendar. She might be making millions as an employee but somehow that isn’t a justifiable expense. She seems to think P.R. requires just ignoring everything the media says. They’re supposedly elite athletes, but Kali sleeps little and makes up for it with lots of coffee (that, I suppose, is more Jennings fault than Kali’s). She takes a distinctly hands-off approach to sponsor management. “The agreement with them was for the RAGE tournaments, not the all-stars. I didn’t realize it mattered. I thought they were just our sponsors, period.” Of course they only complained after things soured weeks in, but that’s why you lock them in. A five (er, six) minute phone call to the lawyer could have answered Kali’s question, and set in motion a quick renegotiation.

Kali only starts to get a handle on things when she starts pulling her teammates in to help her shoulder the burden. This wound up being one of the highlights. After Arena was so Kali-and-Rook-centric, it was nice to see Kali interacting more with the rest of her team.

She needs the help. Kali made powerful enemies when she exposed the linkage between virtual reality and addiction (expressly compared to “the football-concussion controversy at the turn of the century”). It is obvious to the reader long before it is to Kali that her team is the target of a smear campaign (probably because she doesn’t have professional P.R. help). And there are worse things her enemies can do than smear her and her team.

We don’t see quite as much of him, but Rook is back. In the world of Cixin Liu’s Death’s End, the men of Earth have all become feminized a couple centuries into the future, to his female lead’s disappointment. In The Forever War, the men a few decades into (their) future wear makeup. But I have a feeling manliness won’t go out of style. There is a reason that Jennings gives her love interest, Rooke, a style that is “subdued, masculine, and just a little old-fashioned.” In fact, if you want men still acting like men in modern speculative fiction? Your first place to look is a book written by a woman featuring a romance. Of course it will be from a feminine perspective. Query why that is common—and sells, though entirely ignored by the literati—while the same written from a masculine perspective is uncommon and actively denigrated.

I have only a few quibbles. Most of which are because this is essentially a sports book, and Jennings doesn’t know all that much about sports. Which leads to things like workouts designed “to match those of marathoners” that consist of squats, dead lifts, and 30- and 60-second sprints. Uh, ok. And the ending infuriated me, although it still works as a climax. Gauntlet may not be quite at the top of its game like Arena, but that doesn’t mean it still isn’t a heck of a lot of fun.

“A Japanese dojo with a Chinese garden, where I’d practice my Korean martial art, in Los Angeles, California.”

4 of 5 Stars.

Disclosure: I received a review copy through NetGalley.

This is book 2 in a series and it was as riveting as the first book was. Kali is a hard core gamer and in this futuristic time period gamers are like rock stars. She is the first female owner of a team and finds out that being the owner carries a lot of responsibility. She has to keep sponsors happy, keep her team on point, and win the game. If you like gaming and a kick ass heroine this is the book for you!

GAUNTLET is all about seeking a balance -- in life and in virtual reality. After exposing the corruption within the Virtual Gaming League, Kali Ling has a placed a target on her back. It turns out that owning a team is expensive, demanding, and a lot more responsibility than expected. In GAUNTLET, Kali learns there’s a huge difference in being a player and being an owner. She now has to worry about the image of her teammates and the narrative that the media creates about them. When Team Defiance is invited to participate with new, artificial intelligence gaming system, they can’t turn down the shot at winning the grand prize.



The novel takes place in the future but the themes of addiction and cyberbullying are still very relevant. Kali Ling is still struggling with her addiction from the first novel. There’s no easy fixes. Her addiction is always there, just one bad night away. She aims for calm and serenity but sometimes it’s easier to just throw a phone against the wall. The book also addresses the toll of being a female public figure. Whether it’s being a gamer, a celebrity, or an athlete, women are held to a higher standard. When gossip and rumours about Team Defiance start, it’s not a surprise that they impact the female members of the team harder than others.
There are no pained silences in this book. All characters are quick to share their feelings. It’s refreshing but can drag down the action. You just want the character to get back into the arena. Even though it’s clear that in-game warfare has no real world repercussions, the fights are well-written and suspenseful. Reading GAUNTLET is a lot like getting lost in a video game. It’s engrossing enough to make-up for any problems. Even if you’re a casual gamer, the pop culture references are easy to pick up. For non-gamers, Holly Jennings is quick to explain any important lore. While there is an obvious comparison to the Hunger Games series, GAUNTLET is a fun read that stands on its own.

After falling in love with Holly Jennings’s intense, exciting world of virtual gaming in Arena, I had extremely high hopes for its sequel. Gauntlet was everything I’d hoped for and more. It’s imaginative, addictive, and tense. You never know what will be thrown at Kali and her team next, and that’s just the way I like it.

Kali Ling, the youngest team owner in the history of virtual games, is out to change the world of gaming. In a world where gamers are celebrities, their images managed, their moves dictated, and their addictions covered up, Kali is determined to have a team that’s clean, honest, and the players can be exactly who they are. But being a manager is a hell of a lot harder than being a captain. Kali’s drowning trying to be a manager, player, and friend, and that’s without the added problem that her actions have pissed off the Virtual Gaming League. Even with all that on her shoulders, Kali has another new challenge: her team has been invited to play in a new all-star tournament. But this game is unlike any anyone has ever seen. It learns, it adapts, and it will push Kali and her teammates to their very limits, both physically and psychologically.

Like Arena, Gauntlet is suspenseful, engaging, and just plain cool. The added twist of the new game that learns and adapts (plus a few other elements I can’t reveal without spoiling the story) upped the ante. The obstacles facing Kali, Rooke, Hannah, Lily, and Derek forces them to grow, and I loved watching them develop as characters and come together even closer as a team. While Kali is the heart and soul of the book, I cared about each member of team Defiance and loved seeing more of their true selves come out.

Compelling characters aside, I loved the new challenges thrown Kali, both in the game and outside of it. I enjoy not knowing what’s coming next, loved facing each new challenge alongside Kali. Her frustration, pain, and determination were palpable and had me reading late into the night, wanting to see what she would do next. I hated having to put Gauntlet down, and my only complaint is that the end of the book left me on the edge of my seat, eager to see what happens next.

It’s difficult to write about Gauntlet without revealing things that would spoil the story. The fun is in not knowing what obstacles Defiance faces and what internal and external challenges they will have to overcome. I’m not a gamer, but I loved all the detail Ms. Jennings has put into her elaborate world of virtual gaming. The Arena series is vivid and wonderfully entertaining. I can’t wait to see where Ms. Jennings takes Defiance next!

It’s been a few months since Kali Ling made history as the first female captain to win the RAGE tournament along with her team, Defiance. Now, Kali has another mantle she can add to her growing collection, she just became the youngest ever team owner when she bought Defiance out from under its previous management.

While Kali has been dealing with the ins and outs of sponsorships and managing finances, gamers from around the world have been intrigued by a mysterious new place that just popped up, dubbed The Wall. Various people have been seen clandestinely entering the complex, but their identities are kept secret (as secret as they can be with paparazzi hovering 24/7). No one knows what is going on behind those walls, but many believe it has to do with a new kind of drug. When Defiance is finally invited to enter, they discover that The Wall is not about some new drug, but a new kind of technology that, if implemented, could revolutionize the virtual gaming industry. To prove this, there is set to be an All-Star tournament consisting of teams from all over the world. Defiance is ready to show everyone else what they’re made of, but as they enter the tournament they discover the road to the top might not be so easily taken.

Kali went through so much growth by the end of Arena that I was happy she was continuing on that path in Gauntlet. Not to say it was an easy path, but I was happy that the ideals she learned stuck with her throughout. It was also interesting to see a different perspective from Kali’s eyes: that of Team owner. We see her have to deal with the same things she rebelled against in the first book, and it’s kind of an eye opener for her. It’s a testament that you don’t really know what someone else’s life is like until you walk in their shoes.

But behind everything that Kali has to deal with, is her team. I felt like we really got to know more about the others on the team this time around; Derek, Lily, Hannah, and Rooke. When it appears that someone has specifically started targeting Team Defiance outside of the virtual world, the Team can either fall apart or band together. It went a long way toward making me care not just about the outcome of the games, but the actual relationships between the characters.

Now, to the games. I’ll say that some of the outcomes of certain situations were pretty predictable. But it kinda had to be in order to set up the flow of the story. I loved that the gaming world was expanded so much in seeing so many different Teams competing against one another. You begin to realize that Defiance is still rather “young” in terms of what they’ve accomplished in their careers. Plus, Holly Jennings really amped up the intensity of the challenges and the action of the story. I was on the edge of my seat for the final showdowns because in the end when it came down to the wire of who would win it was anyone’s guess.

I really enjoyed this second book. Where the first book I felt had a more solid ending, this one definitely throws down the Gauntlet.

The sequel to Holly Jennings' futuristic debut is finally here! Gauntlet revives with the fierce warrior, Kali Ling, taking over duties as owner of her team Defiance. Not only is she now in control of her team's sponsorships, image, and morale, when the team is invited to a new international all-star league tournament, she still has to play as team captain. The road to victory is even more treacherous as Kali's enemies form not just inside the virtual games, but also in real life.

Kali is still the leader we love to cheer on. Even more so in Gauntlet than in Arena, because this time her teammates are in the crossfire. Before, Kali struggled with addiction to virtual reality, but with Tamachi Industries' new virtual pods playing the game for extended periods of time is safer. Standing up to the VGL and pointing out their unsafe practices in Arena brings consequences that manifest throughout the competition. Her team's morale begins to fall along with their performance and their personal relationships.

When I started Gauntlet I honestly didn't know if I was going to gobble it up like candy or drag through it. I genuinely wanted a follow-up to Kali's story, but I couldn't fathom it taking on a completely separate form from the first novel. In the beginning it seemed to take on a similar path as Arena as readers are taken into a career boosting tournament with Defiance. However, Holly Jennings does that indescribable thing she does where by the end of the story I saw so many ups, downs, twists and turns that the end point is not where I expected to find myself. To have such sophisticated plot lines in a story about characters playing video games is an art and Jennings is a master artist.

Gauntlet broadened the science-fiction aspect of this series and seemed to spend more time in Kali's real futuristic world. The introduction of international teams widens our view of her reality and presents challenges for Defiance in terms of measuring their strength and capability to function as a team. The Arena series and reached a new level and I can't wait to see further progress!
*ARC provided in exchange for an honest review*

Gauntlet is the second installment in author Holly Jennings Arena series. Several months ago, Kali Ling's dream of becoming the first female captain to lead a team to virtual glory came true. Now, she is on a mission to erase the corruption and drug abuse stigma that infects both players and owners in pro-gaming by becoming the youngest team owner ever. Kali is world renowned as the Warrior in Virtual Gaming Rage Tournaments. She is, pure & simple, a badass with skills to back up what she brings to the gaming world. But, she also has more than her fair share of enemies who would do anything to see her fail.

After getting a surprise invitation to visit "The Wall" where new technology is being developed, Kali and her Defiance teammates Derek, Hannah, Lily, & James Rooke are offered the last spot in a tourney that will feature 32 of the best gaming teams in the world. Teams from South Korea, where gaming was birthed, to Sweden, and to a team lead by Jessica Salt, the best female fighter in the world. Dare I say I loved the hell out of Jessica? Not only because of her sound advice she gives Kali, but the way she encourages Kali to become the person she can become by fighting harder, and continuing to stand for what she believes. Can you understand how powerful this message is?

"If you have a dream, then you just have to do it. You can't let money, or experience, or anything else become an obstacle. Never bow down to the world. Always make it bow down to you." Jessica Salt

Kali puts her reputation, her integrity, & her future on the line in this book. She doesn't have the money to throw around like other more settled owners do. But, she is an owner who is a stickler for following the rules. Even when someone has a brief, albeit, untimely failed drug test. She has sponsors who want blood from Kali, and unless she delivers what they want, she could be in jeopardy of falling hard and taking her friends with her. Thankfully, Kali has a core group who are not only her teammates but also her family. She relies on the fact that her teammates stand by her shoulder to shoulder against an increasingly powerful enemy that wants to make Kali pay for what she did in the previous installment. But, Kali isn't going to lie down and rollover for anyone either.

In the end, Gauntlet once again rises above my expectations, and doesn't lay a golden egg like other sophomoric releases. The action is intense, the characters are challenges from the beginning to end, and there is a pretty wacked out ending to the story which I am definitely eager to see what happens next. Jennings is a helluva writer, but she is also diabolical. There are things that Kali, Derek, Hannah, Lily, and Rooke go through that really pushes them all to the mental and physical limits. There are still challenges to come, but I will say that if you haven't read the first book in the series, you really should do so. Especially if you are a geek who loves video games, or just watching them being played out like me. These are realistic characters, with realistic problems, and realistic dreams for the future.

Gauntlet is the second book of the Arena series by Holly Jennings. In the first book, Arena, we met Kali Ling who had achieved her lifelong dream of becoming a professional gamer in the Virtual Gaming League’s RAGE tournaments. The league has the best players in the world competing weekly in virtual reality tournaments, the weapons are digital but the pain is real for the players. They eat, sleep and breathe their training and workouts. However the players also lived the rock star lifestyle with partying and drugs and it cost the life of one of Kali’s teammates.

Now in Gauntlet Kali is still overcoming her teammates death and she has taken control of her life and her virtual gamer teammates by becoming the team owner and hopefully cleaning up the drugs and partying. There is now a new tournament going on that is bringing the top athletes in gaming from all over the world to compete that uses new VR pods that adapt every time a gamer makes a move bringing the players to their physical and psychological brink.

The further I get into this series the more I have actually been enjoying the world and characters that the author has created. The story takes on a tough subject of the young athletes getting involved in drugs and alcohol and digs deep into that subject even into the second book which makes this fantasy world deal with a real life problem while still entertaining a reader with the virtual gaming and fantasy elements.

Kali is a very likable character that has many different demons to battle and a lot to live up to. Watching her grow and struggle is certainly intriguing and you can’t help but to root for her to find her way and develop an inner strength. The rest of Kali’s team also have their struggles in this edition that gave them more depth and had them stepping up as individuals more so than in the first book so I was quite happy with getting to know them better this time around.

Overall, highly enjoying this young adult fantasy series about virtual gaming. Looking forward to reading the next book and seeing what else is in store for Kali and her friends and teammates.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.