Review – Midlife Magical Rogue (Leveling Up, Book 12) by K.F. Breene (4/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Paranormal/Urban Fantasy
Length: 558 pages
Publisher: Hazy Dawn Press, Inc
Release Date: March 19, 2026
ASIN: B0DS54C4M6
Stand Alone or Series: 12th book in the Leveling Up series
Source: Borrowed on ebook from Kindle Unlimited
Rating: 4/5 stars

“As Austin continues his tour to bring shifters into the convocation, he hears whispers about a powerful rogue no one dares bring into their territory—a shifter who strikes first and asks questions later.

Jessie and Austin, however, never walk away from someone in need. Unfortunately, they’re racing against the clock.

Evan, the new gargoyle cairn leader, has asked to meet the Mistress of Ivy House.

What should be straightforward quickly spirals out of control…because nothing is ever simple when Niamh is behind the wheel.

Soon, Jessie’s crew is juggling a volatile rogue and a growing mob of furious gargoyles who don’t appreciate being taunted on their home turf.

As always with this crew, chaos isn’t just possible…it’s inevitable.”

Series Info/Source: This is the 12th book in the Leveling Up series. I borrowed this on ebook from Kindle Unlimited.

Thoughts: I enjoyed this addition to the Leveling Up series. In some ways this is starting to feel a bit repetitive; Jessie and Austin and crew are journeying to different groups trying to convince these groups to join their convocation. This series is starting to focus on other characters a bit more and I still really enjoy the characters and humor here. However, I am ready to move on from this journeying around, facing impossible odds, and showing how awesome they are to coax people into joining them. The books in this series do not stand alone well, you should definitely start from the beginning.

This story is in two parts. The first part involves Austin, Jessie and crew going to a new gargoyle cairn to meet with their leader, Evan, in an effort to get him to joing the convocation. The second part is Austin and Jessie going to track down a powerful rogue shapeshifter. Mages get involved, Niamh has a plan (probably many plans), and things are heating up between Natasha and Tristan.

At this point things are starting to feel a bit formulaic. Jessie, Austin and crew go out to meet some powerful new head of something, end up of in a fight, and have to prove their worth. Then the new head thinks they are awesome and wants to join the convocation. I’m kind of ready for the series to move on to the battle with Momar.

I did like the fact that (although we do spend time with Jessie and Austin) we get to spend time with other characters. Natasha and Tristan were front and center this story and we get to know them better and watch their relationship develop. This was nice because they seem like interesting characters but have always blended into the background with all the other characters some. I also continue to really enjoy Fred a lot, Fred’s hilarious.

This was easy to read and engaging; I breezed through it fairly quickly. However we switch POV a lot on this book. Although I love to hear from all the characters, this definitely messed up the flow of the story at points and kind of took me out of it. It makes the book kind of a lot and kind of slow all at the same. I would prefer if these focused on a couple characters. I do understand with how big the story has gotten and with the number of characters involved this would be really tough to do.

My Summary (4/5): Overall I liked this. This was a fun read and I enjoyed the characters and was happy to spend time with them again. I enjoyed getting to know Natasha and Tristan better. I did find the plot to be a bit repetitive and there is a lot of jumping around between POV. I am curious to see where things go because I think I read somewhere that Breene thinks this series is going to take another 2-3 books to wrap up.