The Legacy of the Key
Ancient Guardians, Book One
by S.L. Morgan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Reviewed for +Readers' Favorite .
Reece is your typical college student, dealing with classes and unfortunately, her father's passing. At least that is what she thinks anyway. She is heading to San Diego to finish up things on her father's estate, when she notices two handsome young men at the airport, and then they are on her plane, which ends up having trouble and returning to Philadelphia. She later notices them again while out with friends, and while out on a run they save her from being abducted. Turns out they are her Guardians and she is someone called The Key. Now she must understand that there are other dimensions and worlds other than her own, all while hiding for her own safety. Ancient Guardians is a young adult tale of character and honesty. S. L. Morgan takes fantasy and morals and makes it into a wonderfully captivating romance novel between a young girl called the Key and her Guardian.
Ancient Guardians: The Legacy of the Key is the beginning of a new series, and it is a strong start to the series. It lays a good foundation for more to come. The guardians are shown to be a people that a strong, yet morally upright and have good values; which is why they were originally chosen as the guardians in the first place. Greed and power are the opposite and are shown to get in the way of life and what is really important. This fantasy novel is set in multiple dimensions, which is a fun concept to think about, with Earth being the central focus of the dimensions. Although there is some fighting, the crux of the story is the romance between the Key, Reece and her guardian, Levi. This is a great young adult and teen novel in that the romance is also woven in with a moral message of honesty, trust and doing the right thing. This novel will also appeal to older readers as well, and given that it is very clean, even mature younger readers would do well with the novel.
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Rise of the Gryphon
Belador, Book Four
by Sherrilyn Kenyon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Rise of the Gryphon is the forth book in the Belador series by Sherrilyn Kenyon and Dianna Love. If you read no other series but one this year, make it this series, please! It is amazing, truly.
Things are moving along! I mean it almost feels like we might be getting close to finding some real answers, and we do find some in this book, but they only serve to actually raise more questions!
Evalle and Storm are still searching to get Tristian and the other Alterants to come to Macha, and the Maedb are trying to get them for their own evil purposes. Nothing of course is going as they plan it to go and they have to take things on the fly and do what they have to, without even talking to each other at times.
Tzader and Quinn are each having their own problems, and poor Evalle is trapped in the middle in that is can't talk to them about what she is doing and everyone is playing on her insecurities, telling her they are betraying her and trying to make her betray them.
Macha is trying to force Tzader and Brina to give up on their love and doing a good job of playing them against each other up to this point so far. Not sure how long it will work because they are both strong people, but you just know it has to come back and bite her in the butt.
Major fighting between the Meadb and Belador's occur, and the secret origins of the Alterants are finally discovered. Although the Belador's are able to win the battle, it seems that all is not actually over, because some new and shocking twists are revealed at the end of the book. Things that no one saw going up until now!
Belador
Book One: Blood Trinity Link to My Review
Book Two: Alterant Link to My Review
Book Three: The Curse Link to My Review
Book Four: Rise of the Gryphon
Book Five: Demon Storm
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The Curse
Belador, Book Three
by Sherrilyn Kenyon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The Curse in the third book in the Belador series written by Sherilyn Kenyon. Let me just put this out there at the start, if you have read anything by Sherrilyn Kenyon, then you are probably hooked! She is a fabulous writer and just draws you into the story so easily that you feel part of it! I have cried, laughed, screamed and everything else under the sun along with the characters in the books.
Evalle has little time to find Tristian and the origins of the Alterants. Of course Sen refuses to give her any time off from her Belador responsibilities to do that and is watching for any and every mistake of fault she might make. And there is still a traitor in the Belador ranks. To top it all off, Storm is missing.
Storm, after being thrown into a wall by Sen as he was trying to protect Evalle, has being lying in a coma for three weeks, hover on the edge of death. His spirit has been keeping him alive, but this is his last chance, and he is fighting back. Once he comes back to Evalle, there is a little tension, as to who his spirit had to trust to take care of Storm while he was out, Adrianna.
This book focus' a little more on the prophecy, or curse as Flaevlynn likes to call it of what must been done to allow the Queen to live forever and not die on her 666th birthday. It also gives more insight into why they are hunting for Evalle and the other Alterants and what their plans are to do with them.
As always, Evalle is working her hardest to do everything she can for Macha. Tzader and Quinn, along with Storm are there to help her the best they can, but for the most part she is limited in what she can actually tell Tzader and Quinn, so she has to rely on Storm the most, which is growing the relationship between them more and more. That is a pleasure to see, especially after everything that happened to her growing up. She deserves someone like Storm.
Belador
Book One: Blood Trinity Link to My Review
Book Two: Alterant Link to My Review
Book Three: The Curse
Book Four: Rise of the Gryphon Link to My Review
Book Five: Demon Storm
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An Almost Perfect World
Legend of East Series, Book One
by Carrie-Ann Barnes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Reviewed for +Readers' Favorite
Miranda loves acting, and has always been great at memorizing her lines, but she is taller than most of the boys in school, so life has been a little rough. Finally in this play her co-star is her same height. Miranda has always known she was adopted, but what happens in the next few days rocks her world like no other. Two strange boys appear in the neighborhood, Alex and Griffin and attempt to get to know Miranda. Although attracted to Alex she tries to avoid them to the point that they are forced to kidnap her. Turns out that Griffin is her brother and Alex his best friend, and they live on another world. They have to take her home for their mother's funeral. Once there she meets her father and twin brother Evan, she gets a job as an actress and learns more about herself. She also finds some secrets. An Almost Perfect World is the story of Miranda's life as she is reintroduced to life on Utopia. Carrie-Ann Barnes tells an inventive story of a promised child, hidden away and brought back to save the world.
An Almost Perfect World, is a cute title given that the world we are taken to is called Utopia. Everything is not perfect on Utopia, and Miranda learns from Jackson that she might be the one that is suppose to save the world. Although at the end of the book, leading into a second we get a hint that someone higher in the family thinks Jackson has it wrong. I found the novel to be interesting and truthful, I mean how would you feel if you were suddenly dropped onto another plant at age 18 and had to figure out everything all over again. It rang true, and felt like something that could really be happening. I enjoyed the characters, something in each of them spoke to me. This is set up to be part of a series, you can tell by the abrupt ending of this book, which is not one of my favorite things, and you can tell that certain characters are keeping secrets. Although billed as a young adult book, this is a great read for young adults, teens and adults as well.
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Cloak and Silence
The League, Book Seven
by Sherrilyn Kenyon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Cloak and Silence is labeled as book 6 in the League series, but I call it book 7, because I don't label books as 2.5 and such. So my numbering is sometimes a bit off the numbering on the books themselves, but I still keep them in the correct order, and work very hard to make sure that I get books that come out later worked back into the series where they rightfully belong.
The last book was Darling's story, so we saw a great deal of Maris, now we get to move on to Maris and find out his story! Maris is just one of those guys that you can't help but love. He is just always looking out for his friends, always ready with a joke and making everyone feel better and we all know that underneath it all he is probably hurting but won't let anyone know it.
Maris comes from another of those war-mongering planets that believes a man is measured by his might in battle. So for a young man like Maris, who is gay, growing up there was extremely rough! His own family took out hits on him. But the thing about Maris is that when you become his friend, he is loyal to the bitter end.
Ture has lived all his life on the same small planet, doesn't know much about other cultures or planets, but he was disowned by his parents when he told them he was gay, and he is only looking for someone who will love him for who he is and not try to change him.
Maris and Ture are introduce by Zarya and it is an instant attraction, but both have been hurt before and are a little guy shy of trying another relationship. This is a well written and beautiful relationship that unfolds in this story. Just because it is about a gay couple, don't let that turn you off the book, it is well worth the read. This is a future world that will give you pause to think about your own world, and some believes and traditions going on now.
The League
Book 1: Born of Night
Book 2: Born of Fire
Book 3: Fire & Ice
Book 4: Born of Ice
Book 5: Born of Shadows Link to My Review
Book 6: Born of Silence Link to My Review
Book 7: Cloak & Silence
Book 8: Born of Fury
Book 9: Born of Betrayal
Book 10: Born of Defiance
Book 11: Born of Vengeance
View all my reviews
Born of Silence
The League, Book 6
by Sherrilyn Kenyon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The future worlds under the protection of the League are once again the setting for this, the fifth book in the series. Sherrilyn Kenyon takes us back to a cruel and tough existance of this future, yet one where poeople who truly find love, love more deeply than anyone else.
This story will follow the Sentella agent Kere, the governor to be Darling Cruel and the leader of the resistance forces, Zayra. Zayra and Kere, meet on missions and fall in love, and although he has managed to keep his indenty hidden form her, to protect Sentella and the organization, he is ready to reveal all to her, but he needs four days he tells her to protect his family. Of course, we all know what happens to the best laid plans of mice and men.
Darling Cruel may be his name, but he is anything but cruel, although that is not what the world thinks of him, and he just lets them think what they want. The abuse and torture that Darling endures throughout his life at the hands of his Uncle, schoolmates, doctors, guards, and captors is beyond belief. It is more than anyone one person should ever have to go through, in fact it is probably more than ten people should have to go through. Does it explain who he is? Sorta, but more it makes the love he feels for those friends that he holds dear that much more remarkable. He is willing to die for certain friends that have proved their loyalty to him. There is enough detail in the accounts that you understand what is going on and what happened to him, but not so much that you are sick to your stomach.
Now, I have read a few reviews that said they HATED this book because they felt like the author jumped ship with Darling. I am not sure what they are talking about. They felt that the author "turned a gay character straight" and I think that is silly. In the entire series I have never though Darling was gay. Yes he hung out with Maris, who is clearly gay, but I got the feeling more that Darling didn't want anyone to know anything about his love life, it was a closely guarded secret, not that he was gay. So this book did not seem a departure from the past storylines for me, in fact I felt it fit in perfectly.
I have loved this series, and excited to say that it looks like there are at least three more books scheduled to be released in the series, or at least the author have given out titles for three more. I also happen to love the setting, the future and this harsh and unforgiving world, where people love better. Sometimes I wish I could actually go there!
The League
Book 1: Born of Night
Book 2: Born of Fire
Book 3: Fire & Ice
Book 4: Born of Ice
Book 5: Born of Shadows Link to My Review
Book 6: Born of Silence
Book 7: Cloak & Silence Link to My Review
Book 8: Born of Fury
Book 9: Born of Betrayal
Book 10: Born of Defiance
Book 11: Born of Vengeance
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Born of Shadows
The League, Book Five
by Sherrilyn Kenyon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Caillen Dagan has spent his life taking care of his sisters and getting them out of one scrape or mess or another, so when his sister needs helps he thinks nothing of coming to her aid. It never occurs to him that he might end up with a death sentence on his head. A last second stay of execution turns his world upside down, when he finds out he is not who he always thought he was, and now must adjust to a new life and a new role. Good thing he has friends in high places to help him through it.
Desideria is a bodyguard for the Queen, her mother, but she has much to prove, since her father was not of their planet, she is looked at as less of a warrior. When she overhears a plot to kill her and her mother, no one believes her, until she is attacked and Caillen comes to her rescue, only problem, she jumps to help him in the fight and they end up in an escape pod, only to be later labeled as the murder's of their parents.
Now they must work together, with a few good friends of Caillen's to uncover the plot, and figure out who is out to frame them both and how it all is connected. Especially since they had never meet before that day. At the same time, Caillen and Desideria find themselves falling for each other.
Travel back to the future world of Sherrilyn Kenyon and The League, and those ever rogue good guys, the Sentella. I have to say that this is probably one of my all time favorite series, at this point I am even thinking about going back and rereading the beginning books. It is just that I love the world that the author developed the idea of this League and this band of rogues that need to police it and take care of things no one else can.
You will again see favorite characters from the first two book, since this book goes back to the first generation again.
The League
Book One: Born of Night My Review Link
Book Two: Born of Fire My Review Link
Book Three: Fire and Ice
Book Four:Born of Ice My Review Link
Book Five: Born of Shadows
Book Six: Born of Silence My Review Link
Book Seven: Cloak and Silence My Review Link
Book Eight: Born of Fury
View all my reviews
