Mira's parents wish she'd get a real job, but she's living the dream with her cat Kline in a small house that she has surrounded with poisonous plants after getting her degree in botany. Then the System arrives and everyone is whisked away to a world that has more magic than technology. A System entity known as the Oracle explains the basics and asks about the kind of life Mira wants. Does she want to be a badass adventurer, perhaps a combat mage pursuing godhood, or would she prefer a safer life as a normal civilian? All Mira wants to do is work with plants,so she could be a farmer, but that sounds boring. Irritated with the whole situation she declares that what she wants to be is a botanist. That's not a standard class so she is automatically classed with those struggling for power and not afraid of violence, and furthermore, since she doesn't like people, she wants to be dropped into a forest far away from everyone else. The Oracle does try to talk her out of it because the available area matching that description is a deadly forest full of poisonous plants and higher level animals that can only be accessed once a year. Luckily for Mira, the System sends all pets with their owners as they start their new life!

So Mira gets dropped on top of a carnivorous plant in the fourth ring of the deadly Wraithwood. She pretty much stumbles from near certain death to near certain death until she's thoroughly exhausted and then she starts to get angry. That's when the fun starts. From the first Kline is a great feline character. He's small, fluffy, and fiercely loyal to the woman who adopted him knowing he would have higher medical costs, so he is determined to protect his brilliant but relatively helpless human and chooses to become a badass combat spirit cat although he still looks like the same adorable fluffball. In the outermost ring of the Wraithwood is another Earth native who would prefer to avoid people, but instead of plants Aidan worked with animals at a zoo so chose the beast master class. There's one complication for Aidan. The System has issued a domain wide quest with enormous rewards to make a delivery to a crazy woman in the fourth circle and Aiden alone is offered a special advantage quest which draws the wrong kind of attention.

Best of all, this LitRPG is quite different from the two I regularly read. For one thing, the science seems accurate, at least where it intersects my own education, so it probably is accurate overall. As a microbiology major there's a guilty pleasure in reading about another cat loving scientist with offbeat interests in her field. Also, using nature to fight nature instead of just bashing things on the head to level sounds like fun.

Wraithwood Botanist is included in the Kindle Unlimited list or you can buy the e-book. It's also available on Audible and the narrator, Reba Buhr got rave reviews.