For some reason, I have a soft spot when it comes to faeries. Probably because when I was younger, I was intrigued by their history, and finding out more about them nearly became an obsession at one point. Now, every time I come across a fiction novel about faeries, and it has an original premise, I jump at the chance to read it. Personally, I think Rachel Morgan has created a wonderful and original faerie world, and THE FAERIE GUARDIAN is a great start to what might be an epic series.
Violet, or Vi to her friends, is training to become a guardian, a sort of police for the faeries. Guarding humans and fae beings alike, a guardian's purpose is to either chase away or kill their mark, although Vi much prefers not to kill anyone. When she is assigned to protect Nate, a young boy, she's surprised he can see past her glamour, something humans are not supposed to be able to do. She breaks the two biggest faerie rules by letting Nate see her, and inadvertently bringing him into Creepy Hollow. The mystery that is Nate, almost becomes an obsession for her, not only because he's good looking, but something curious is unfolding in Nate's life.
What's amazing is how many bad guys we encounter throughout the book. I think it's what's most appealing about THE FAERIE GUARDIAN. You really don't know who the main antagonist is and they keep coming at Vi and Nate for one reason or another. Whether it's a duo kidnapping Nate, a centaur chasing them in faerie Underground, Nate's supposed mother that attacks Vi for some odd and unknown reason or another duo tracking Nate with a strange eye tattoo on his back, they keep coming at our protagonists, even if they are more or less in the dark about what's really going on. It's the mystery and the intrigue that keeps this book going and the fast pace of the story is definitively an advantage. It's paced so fast, sometime I wish that author might have slowed down a little and described her faerie world, just a little bit more. Sometimes it's those little extra thing that makes a book "exceptional", rather than "very good", and this book lacked a bit of it.
The banter between the characters is also pretty amazing. Vi is a high-spirited character and when you throw in Nate that is curious about everything and likes to talk, you get some pretty great conversations. I especially liked this one exchange, which came early in the book when Vi and Nate first met.
"You can't be a faerie. You're way too big."
I lower my hands. "Excuse me?" I've been called many things in my seventeen years, but 'big' has never been one of them. Quite the opposite, in fact.
"Aren't faeries supposed to be, like, really tiny? With wings and a wand and faerie dust?"
"I'm not Tinker Bell!"
A character that I'm not sure what to make of is Ryn. As fellow student guardians, Vi and Ryn are competing to be the best of their graduating class and their feud has them squabble throughout the book. Their rivalry is really fun to read, and you keep wondering if there's something more than feud behind their bickering.
For a self-published book, I'm really satisfied with THE FAERIE GUARDIAN. It doesn't read like a self-published book because it's very well written, well edited and the flow of the book is quite perfect. I haven't read the other two books of the trilogy so I can't speak for the whole series, but if the rest of the books are as stunning as this one, I'm anticipating an epic continuation and conclusion. I really enjoyed reading this introduction to Morgan's faerie world, and I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the series. So many things happened in this story that I can't wait to see how it all unfolds.
I love this series and Rachel Morgan so so much! Best self-published book ever! You really should read the rest of the series. Book two is the best. I'm so glad you liked The Faerie Guardian :)
ReplyDeleteI loved this book too! The whole series is really good, you won't regret reading next two.
ReplyDeleteI'm definitely planning on reading the whole series
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. For a self published book, it's pretty amazing!
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