Synopsis
Protecting humans from dangerous magical creatures is all in a day’s work for a faerie training to be a guardian. Seventeen-year-old Violet Fairdale knows this better than anyone—she’s about to become the best guardian the Guild has seen in years. That is, until a cute human boy who can somehow see through her faerie glamor follows her into the Fae realm. Now she’s broken Guild Law, a crime that could lead to her expulsion.
The last thing Vi wants to do is spend any more time with the boy who got her into this mess, but the Guild requires that she return Nate to his home and make him forget everything he’s discovered of the Fae realm. Easy, right? Not when you factor in evil faeries, long-lost family members, and inconvenient feelings of the romantic kind. Vi is about to find herself tangled up in a dangerous plot—and it’ll take all her training to get out alive.
Review
★★★★★
The Faerie Guardian is the first book in the
Creepy Hollow series. The series consists of 5 books:
The Faerie Prince (book 2),
The Faerie War (book 3),
A Faerie's Secret (book 4),
A Faerie's Revenge (book 5).
As the title implies, the book involves faeries. No, they're not miniature Tinker Bells with their little dresses and faerie dust. These faeries are human-size, and don't generally carry around glittery powder. They live in a different real than humans and use faerie paths to travel between realms - or dimension if you'd rather call it that. In this book, the characters live in
Creepy Hollow - isn't the name just great? I love it! Humans are unaware of magic and all of its implications; they live happy, ignorant lives.
The story is entirely narrated by Violet Fairdale, a 17 year old faerie. Her name seems to be related to the fact that her hair is streaked with purple (all natural, too!) and her magic is the the same color. She is in training to become a
guardian. [Guardians are in charge of protecting humans from magic folk; they go out on assignments in the human realm when magical creatures decide to pay a visit to a human.] Violet is actually at the top of her class and appears to be the perfect trainee. Every faerie has a special gift - an ability -, and hers is pretty cool.
I really like it when books are told from a character's point of view, in the first person. I don't know why that is but it makes it easier to read. It's told in the present tense which was rather disconcerting at first but I got used to it quickly.
Violet interacts a lot with Ryn, a childhood friend who's become more of an enemy. And, whenever she would run into Ryn, she would immediately get annoyed and frustrated. I like learning about the way the character reacts to certain people; it makes the story more intimate, more captivating.
She also meets Nathaniel, a human boy, while out on an assignment. He can see through her glamour, how is that possible? We don't know! Nevertheless, they try to figure it out in secret as the Guild has rules against introducing humans to the faerie realm. It doesn't help that he's attractive and Violet can't seem to stay away from him.
The action involves lots of magic but also close-combat with weapons and such. It's not too fantasy-oriented where they do stuff like send magical punches and what not. Okay, that may or may not happen at times but physical force is still at play. It may seem weird but I like reading descriptions of battles - it's like a slow-motion fight scene!
Overall, I really liked this book. It provides a good balance between drama, action, and, of course, romance (duh!). The downside for me was that it took me a few chapters to really get into it and feel all that Violet was feeling. By the end, I hadn't realised how close I was to finishing it and when I tapped my screen to move to the next page, it said "Next in
The Faerie Prince" and I may or may not have been overcome with disappointment. Bottom line, it's great and I need the next book...
I highly recommend you get this book!
The eBook is free!
