Harlan Rusk is broke, under-ranked, and very good at finding value in things richer people already threw away.
Then he buys a dead magical artifact from a reclamation yard for $11.86.
It calls him WARLORD.
Behind the junkyard relic waits Briarlock: a ruined manor in another world, a damaged Household System obsessed with military terminology, a portal nobody has properly licensed, and enough structural problems to bankrupt a man who was already doing an excellent job of that himself.
Harlan has one useful ability—Function Recovery—and exactly the wrong personality for leaving valuable broken things alone. Repairing Briarlock begins as a salvage opportunity. It becomes a full-blown cozy LitRPG progression fantasy when the House starts measuring shelter, provisions, trust, roles, and responsibility instead of handing out easy power.
Unfortunately, people are harder to optimize than buildings.
Neris is a surveyor with no intention of becoming somebody’s subordinate. Marnie is a medic who can patch Harlan up while refusing every attempt to turn affection into authority. Audra has contracts, boundaries, and invoices. A tiny hinge-drake named Clink treats property law as a personal suggestion. And Merrick Sorn sees Briarlock as exactly what Harlan fears it could become: a profitable system with one owner at the top.
To keep the House, Harlan will have to level it without conquering the people who make it worth saving.
The Junkyard Door is a cozy humorous LitRPG progression romantasy packed with portal magic, magical-house upgrades, salvage economics, dry banter, competence porn, slow-burn harem dynamics, adult multi-partner romance, bureaucratic absurdity, and one tiny dragon with strong opinions about hinges.
If you like fantasy where the hero can fix almost anything except his schedule, the System is powerful but deeply stupid, and romance gets more complicated every time somebody acquires a key, welcome to Briarlock.
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Then he buys a dead magical artifact from a reclamation yard for $11.86.
It calls him WARLORD.
Behind the junkyard relic waits Briarlock: a ruined manor in another world, a damaged Household System obsessed with military terminology, a portal nobody has properly licensed, and enough structural problems to bankrupt a man who was already doing an excellent job of that himself.
Harlan has one useful ability—Function Recovery—and exactly the wrong personality for leaving valuable broken things alone. Repairing Briarlock begins as a salvage opportunity. It becomes a full-blown cozy LitRPG progression fantasy when the House starts measuring shelter, provisions, trust, roles, and responsibility instead of handing out easy power.
Unfortunately, people are harder to optimize than buildings.
Neris is a surveyor with no intention of becoming somebody’s subordinate. Marnie is a medic who can patch Harlan up while refusing every attempt to turn affection into authority. Audra has contracts, boundaries, and invoices. A tiny hinge-drake named Clink treats property law as a personal suggestion. And Merrick Sorn sees Briarlock as exactly what Harlan fears it could become: a profitable system with one owner at the top.
To keep the House, Harlan will have to level it without conquering the people who make it worth saving.
The Junkyard Door is a cozy humorous LitRPG progression romantasy packed with portal magic, magical-house upgrades, salvage economics, dry banter, competence porn, slow-burn harem dynamics, adult multi-partner romance, bureaucratic absurdity, and one tiny dragon with strong opinions about hinges.
If you like fantasy where the hero can fix almost anything except his schedule, the System is powerful but deeply stupid, and romance gets more complicated every time somebody acquires a key, welcome to Briarlock.
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Used availability for Saeri Doan's The Junkyard Door