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Our Young Guardians: Seven & Two
The life he knew the day before was long gone...Who will protect his mother now?The future of our civilization has always been in the hands of our children. What you may not know is that many years ago, a few of our young ones fought a quest against evil-an evil unlike anything anyone has ever seen under this sun. They didn't know it, but their sacrifices allowed our forefathers-and us-to maintain our fragile ownership of this world. In Seven & Two, the first book of the Our Young Guardians series, we begin the chronicle of one who was brave enough to leave behind what he knew. His faded handwriting not only captures how they struggled through that war, but how they learned to find themselves as they grew up away from their families. You and I owe them more than we could ever give. And even though there is no word of them ever asking for anything, my heart tells me they would only ask for one thing-to keep them where their friends are. The least we can do for them is honor their story.
321 pages, Paperback
Published September 30, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 3, 2017
https://koeur.wordpress.com/2017/03/0...
: Rodi Szoke
Publishing Date: October 2016
ISBN: 9780997565911
Genre: SciFi
Rating: 4.5/5
Publishers Description: Seven journals were written but only five remain and are hidden, guarded by folk and charms, waiting to be retrieved so their story can be shared. Through the words of one of the children, we follow not only their adventures but also their struggles through adolescence as they become adults.
Review: Our hero, Jonek, longs to be a soldier/warrior and sneaks off to secretly watch the soldiers train. He and his friends stumble upon a maggoty beast that is an emissary of the evil that is coming to their land.
This was surprisingly good. High pace, good character development and constant surprises in magical form abound. The world(s) are epic and have a grand foundation in magic. At every turn there is this creative inventiveness by the author to infuse new ideas and elements and weave them into the story line. Just when you think Jonek is topped out with surprises he goes and gets a magic lizard under his skin. It was those types of instances that made this novel enjoyable. I could not put it down and chastised myself for not doing so. I should not have liked the rampant use of magic that at times appeared in Deus ex machina fashion but was wholly entertained throughout.
The only problem I have is that this author does not have a publishing deal. GET THIS!
: Rodi Szoke
Publishing Date: October 2016
ISBN: 9780997565911
Genre: SciFi
Rating: 4.5/5
Publishers Description: Seven journals were written but only five remain and are hidden, guarded by folk and charms, waiting to be retrieved so their story can be shared. Through the words of one of the children, we follow not only their adventures but also their struggles through adolescence as they become adults.
Review: Our hero, Jonek, longs to be a soldier/warrior and sneaks off to secretly watch the soldiers train. He and his friends stumble upon a maggoty beast that is an emissary of the evil that is coming to their land.
This was surprisingly good. High pace, good character development and constant surprises in magical form abound. The world(s) are epic and have a grand foundation in magic. At every turn there is this creative inventiveness by the author to infuse new ideas and elements and weave them into the story line. Just when you think Jonek is topped out with surprises he goes and gets a magic lizard under his skin. It was those types of instances that made this novel enjoyable. I could not put it down and chastised myself for not doing so. I should not have liked the rampant use of magic that at times appeared in Deus ex machina fashion but was wholly entertained throughout.
The only problem I have is that this author does not have a publishing deal. GET THIS!
June 8, 2017
Rodi Szoke is a storyteller who transports us into worlds beyond our imagination! A fantastic journey to mystical places where our young guardians hold high the torches of faith, hope, and love as they lead us into adventure on their mission to protect us from the dark forces of evil. OUR YOUNG GUARDIANS: SEVEN & TWO – Impossible not to pick up! Impossible to put down!
Tweeting is not just for birds anymore! I was wandering around on Twitter one day a few months ago when I came upon Rodi Szoke’s Twitter page. The book cover for SEVEN & TWO attracted my attention, so I followed the link to Amazon and purchased the ebook. From the very first paragraph, my attention was riveted. That was stunning for me given it usually takes at least a chapter of a book to capture my interest. By the end of chapter four in SEVEN & TWO, I was anxious to hold the paperback book in my hands!
“If the dark mist flows strongly in your veins, the portals won’t let you pass and the soldiers will use their weapons immediately, without even saying a word. . . . I couldn’t help thinking about those poor souls who may have made serious mistakes in the past but worked hard to straighten out their lives afterwards. Would they dare to pass through the portals? Who or what decides how much dark mist makes someone good or bad?” – Excerpt from OUR YOUNG GUARDIANS: SEVEN & TWO
The best storytellers are teachers, and the best teachers are those who help us learn to ask the questions of the heart’s yearning. Rodi Szoke is one of the best storytellers we have in our world today. Peppered with adventure, suspense, love, friendship, life lessons, wisdom, and mysteries yet to be solved in this continuing series, OUR YOUNG GUARDIANS: SEVEN & TWO begins an exciting journey upon which hearts both young and old may embark with delight . . .
When I was a kid, my mother would read to us every night and often during the day. Everything from the great classics to Winnie the Pooh to The Wizard of Oz—we lived inside the great stories she brought to life with her golden voice in all its expression. Szoke has that magic storytelling touch and the imagination to bring worlds to life through the words he weaves so spectacularly in his own creations. “Beware these pages,” however, for once you enter into Szoke’s fantasy worlds, you may find they become quite real and beckon you to stay.
With each stroke of the pen, the author paints his characters and scenery with precision. I could smell the forest at dusk and feel the cold river water on my feet. The mountain peaks and meadows, the market and the cemetery, the contests and the games, the trials and the victories—all await the reader to join with Szoke’s band of young guardians and their families and friends.
Perhaps it is Jonek’s willingness to dive into the unknown, or his devotion and desire to protect his mother . . . or Tynia’s almost fairy-like personality sharpened to a warrioress’s point . . . or Kharlo’s dedication to the cause . . . or maybe it’s Tobho’s blind faith in miracles, or Peprokh’s crazy menagerie . . . the characters seem endless and fascinating in their own right, each an integral part of this story and seamlessly interwoven with one another. I found a part of me in every one of them.
Suspense and adventure run like a rushing river through chapter after chapter with building intensity the likes of which only the best wordsmiths can accomplish. Are you ready to go for a wild ride?
“Someone told me long ago that we are just leaves tumbling in the winds of life. You’ll never know where you’ll land or whether something will land on you.” – Excerpt from OUR YOUNG GUARDIANS: SEVEN & TWO
Heed the wise words that rise from Szoke’s characters . . . after all, isn’t that exactly how we have come to leaf through the sparkling pages in this gem of a book we now have in our very own hands today?
A wonderfully crafted story for every age, every bit as exciting as the most popular YA series out there! It’s easy to envision the OUR YOUNG GUARDIANS series on the New York Times YA Best-Seller List and topping the movie charts in the not-too-distant future. In the meantime, I’ll be on the lookout for the next book in this series!
© Jennifer Sweete, June 2017
jennifersweete.com/our-young-guardian...
Tweeting is not just for birds anymore! I was wandering around on Twitter one day a few months ago when I came upon Rodi Szoke’s Twitter page. The book cover for SEVEN & TWO attracted my attention, so I followed the link to Amazon and purchased the ebook. From the very first paragraph, my attention was riveted. That was stunning for me given it usually takes at least a chapter of a book to capture my interest. By the end of chapter four in SEVEN & TWO, I was anxious to hold the paperback book in my hands!
“If the dark mist flows strongly in your veins, the portals won’t let you pass and the soldiers will use their weapons immediately, without even saying a word. . . . I couldn’t help thinking about those poor souls who may have made serious mistakes in the past but worked hard to straighten out their lives afterwards. Would they dare to pass through the portals? Who or what decides how much dark mist makes someone good or bad?” – Excerpt from OUR YOUNG GUARDIANS: SEVEN & TWO
The best storytellers are teachers, and the best teachers are those who help us learn to ask the questions of the heart’s yearning. Rodi Szoke is one of the best storytellers we have in our world today. Peppered with adventure, suspense, love, friendship, life lessons, wisdom, and mysteries yet to be solved in this continuing series, OUR YOUNG GUARDIANS: SEVEN & TWO begins an exciting journey upon which hearts both young and old may embark with delight . . .
When I was a kid, my mother would read to us every night and often during the day. Everything from the great classics to Winnie the Pooh to The Wizard of Oz—we lived inside the great stories she brought to life with her golden voice in all its expression. Szoke has that magic storytelling touch and the imagination to bring worlds to life through the words he weaves so spectacularly in his own creations. “Beware these pages,” however, for once you enter into Szoke’s fantasy worlds, you may find they become quite real and beckon you to stay.
With each stroke of the pen, the author paints his characters and scenery with precision. I could smell the forest at dusk and feel the cold river water on my feet. The mountain peaks and meadows, the market and the cemetery, the contests and the games, the trials and the victories—all await the reader to join with Szoke’s band of young guardians and their families and friends.
Perhaps it is Jonek’s willingness to dive into the unknown, or his devotion and desire to protect his mother . . . or Tynia’s almost fairy-like personality sharpened to a warrioress’s point . . . or Kharlo’s dedication to the cause . . . or maybe it’s Tobho’s blind faith in miracles, or Peprokh’s crazy menagerie . . . the characters seem endless and fascinating in their own right, each an integral part of this story and seamlessly interwoven with one another. I found a part of me in every one of them.
Suspense and adventure run like a rushing river through chapter after chapter with building intensity the likes of which only the best wordsmiths can accomplish. Are you ready to go for a wild ride?
“Someone told me long ago that we are just leaves tumbling in the winds of life. You’ll never know where you’ll land or whether something will land on you.” – Excerpt from OUR YOUNG GUARDIANS: SEVEN & TWO
Heed the wise words that rise from Szoke’s characters . . . after all, isn’t that exactly how we have come to leaf through the sparkling pages in this gem of a book we now have in our very own hands today?
A wonderfully crafted story for every age, every bit as exciting as the most popular YA series out there! It’s easy to envision the OUR YOUNG GUARDIANS series on the New York Times YA Best-Seller List and topping the movie charts in the not-too-distant future. In the meantime, I’ll be on the lookout for the next book in this series!
© Jennifer Sweete, June 2017
jennifersweete.com/our-young-guardian...
September 27, 2017
“Our Young Guardians: Seven & Two” eBook was published in 2016 and was written by Rodi Szoke. This is Mr. Szoke’s first novel and the first in his planned “Our Young Guardians” series.
I received an ARC of this novel through https://www.netgalley.com in return for a fair and honest review. I categorize this novel as ‘PG’ because it contains scenes of Violence. The story is set in a mythical land. We are reading the account of what happened set down in a first person ‘diary’ like tale. A young 13 year old boy, Jonek. is the primary character.
Jonek’s life has been as normal as one might expect growing up in a small village. He is suddenly thrust into the role of protector of both his family and strangers he encountered on the way home. This propels him into an epic quest where he faces many opponents with both sword and magic.
I enjoyed the 10 hours I spent reading this 329 page Young Adult Fantasy. While the challenges encountered on the quest are not unusual, some of the characters encountered and allies made are. This novel did arrive at a conclusion of sorts, but the way is prepared for sequels, which I look forward to reading. I think the cover art chosen could have been better. I give this novel a 4.5 (rounded up to a 5) out of 5.
Further book reviews I have written can be accessed at https://johnpurvis.wordpress.com/blog/.
I received an ARC of this novel through https://www.netgalley.com in return for a fair and honest review. I categorize this novel as ‘PG’ because it contains scenes of Violence. The story is set in a mythical land. We are reading the account of what happened set down in a first person ‘diary’ like tale. A young 13 year old boy, Jonek. is the primary character.
Jonek’s life has been as normal as one might expect growing up in a small village. He is suddenly thrust into the role of protector of both his family and strangers he encountered on the way home. This propels him into an epic quest where he faces many opponents with both sword and magic.
I enjoyed the 10 hours I spent reading this 329 page Young Adult Fantasy. While the challenges encountered on the quest are not unusual, some of the characters encountered and allies made are. This novel did arrive at a conclusion of sorts, but the way is prepared for sequels, which I look forward to reading. I think the cover art chosen could have been better. I give this novel a 4.5 (rounded up to a 5) out of 5.
Further book reviews I have written can be accessed at https://johnpurvis.wordpress.com/blog/.
September 20, 2017
I really like what Rodi Szoke did with this book. There were a lot of elements that I enjoyed about this book.
From the first, I was drawn to the narrator: an almost 13 year old boy named Jonek. Throughout the whole book I was concerned for Jonek and his friends. There was a lot of really good character development for Jonek and some of his friends though some of the other characters felt a tiny bit flat.
The world building was very good and felt a bit Tolkien-y but that is something I tend to enjoy. However, there were a lot of times throughout the book where magic tended to be overly convenient. Things appeared or special powers suddenly realized at precisely the right moment tended to make it feel a little much at times but if you are a lover of fantasy and magic, you will probably not be bothered by it. While it did make me pause a few times, I was enjoying the story and I love magic enough that it didn't bother me over much. The only other downside I can think of is that the book may have been a little longer than it needed to be, but again, I liked it enough to finish in two sittings.
All in all I enjoyed the read and will definitely read the next in the series.
I give it a 4 which is good because I very rarely give 5 stars.
From the first, I was drawn to the narrator: an almost 13 year old boy named Jonek. Throughout the whole book I was concerned for Jonek and his friends. There was a lot of really good character development for Jonek and some of his friends though some of the other characters felt a tiny bit flat.
The world building was very good and felt a bit Tolkien-y but that is something I tend to enjoy. However, there were a lot of times throughout the book where magic tended to be overly convenient. Things appeared or special powers suddenly realized at precisely the right moment tended to make it feel a little much at times but if you are a lover of fantasy and magic, you will probably not be bothered by it. While it did make me pause a few times, I was enjoying the story and I love magic enough that it didn't bother me over much. The only other downside I can think of is that the book may have been a little longer than it needed to be, but again, I liked it enough to finish in two sittings.
All in all I enjoyed the read and will definitely read the next in the series.
I give it a 4 which is good because I very rarely give 5 stars.
September 17, 2017
I'm always up for a book by an author I haven't read yet. As there's always the chance I'll be sucked into the world they've created. And Victor Rodi Szoke did exactly that.
I felt I was right there with the main characters, experiencing everything through their eyes, and even noticed a few times I was holding my breath, being so caught up in the moment.
I don't want to give anything away in my review. It must be enough to say that I recommend this book to readers of all ages. This is a story that empowers children & teens make feel hopeful. We should all be encouraged to think and plan for ourselves regardless of our age and circumstance. You won't be disappointed.
I enjoyed this book, and I'm looking forward to the next book in the series.
I felt I was right there with the main characters, experiencing everything through their eyes, and even noticed a few times I was holding my breath, being so caught up in the moment.
I don't want to give anything away in my review. It must be enough to say that I recommend this book to readers of all ages. This is a story that empowers children & teens make feel hopeful. We should all be encouraged to think and plan for ourselves regardless of our age and circumstance. You won't be disappointed.
I enjoyed this book, and I'm looking forward to the next book in the series.
November 16, 2017
A good fantasy adventure featuring young Jonek, as he fights against evil. One for fantasy fans, I would recommend it.
March 3, 2017
I received a complimentary copy.
I had a harder time getting the connection with this book, it seems to be so far out there in the way it is styled. I think maybe I had less imagination than is needed to get through the chapters. It is more for someone who wants to get lost in a world of unusual findings but at the same time can be fused with a realistic timeline.
I had a harder time getting the connection with this book, it seems to be so far out there in the way it is styled. I think maybe I had less imagination than is needed to get through the chapters. It is more for someone who wants to get lost in a world of unusual findings but at the same time can be fused with a realistic timeline.
April 5, 2017
Before we start out with this review, we need to explain our review system. Often we will give a book a preliminary once over and determine that it is just plain terrible. Sometimes there are terrible grammatical errors in books for young children. Other times the book is anti-Christian or not in keeping with Christian values.
You will see few zero star, one star, or two star reviews because we often tell publicists and authors the problems we see with the book and tell them that there is no way we can endorse their book.
We read a lot of bad books so that we can tell you about the good ones. However, when we do give you a review, we “calls ’em likes we sees ’em”, to quote our favorite U. S. History teacher, Mrs. Anna Dean Pennington.
So, when we give anything a four or five-star review, it has earned it.
That being said, let us tell you that the book Our YoungGuardians: Seven and Two by Rodi Szoke should come with a warning to potential readers. That warning should read:
Warning: if you start to read this book you will not be able to put it down until you finish reading it. When you do finish reading it, you will be waiting for Rodi, the author, to finish writing the next in the series.
We give this book all five stars!
This book is about a different world in a different place. Magic is used but it is more elfin magic and not dark magic. Think Lord of the Rings.
This book had us guessing what would happen next all the way through. This is in another world, two actually, where earthly rules do not apply.
This book is geared more towards teenagers and young adult readers. However, adults like us can enjoy it, too.
This is that one rare book that we tell our kids about that they want to read as well.
This is a great read that you just can’t put down.
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