The Guardians

by Derek Palmer

A trip into the wilderness that turns into life-time adventure!

Stian is a young man in his late teens, recently orphaned but still an excellent hunter and tracker. He's engaged to the prettiest and nicest girl of the village and he's trying to get her parents more agreeable for marriage. The normal village life is suddenly disturbed when the Guardians, who's job is to guard and protect the whole kingdom, stop at the village and ask for assistance. Assistance of the tracker!

Both Stian and her fiancée understand that by helping the valued Guardians they could get support to their relationship, but simple tracking and hunting trip turns out to be much longer and complicated than Stian originally believed. Not only that, in order to be successful Stian also needs to learn some new things about himself. He also must learn that not all the things are what they first seem to be and some of the childhood fairy tales weren't fairy tales at all.

Book I of a three book series of courage, betrayal and love located in the world of some magic, Elves and Trolls.

Genres: Fantasy

372 pages, Paperback

Published May 15, 2019

About the author

Sometimes I lay awake in the middle of the night and the sleep seems to avoid me - that's what happens to me every now and then without any specific reason. I can be stressed or troubled and still able to sleep, but sometimes I just lay awake, still - and listening. That's when they come. It can be a single idea, one sentence, a silly thought and often it may be gone as soon as it appeared. Sometimes that little piece refuses to leave and parks itself inside my head and it starts collecting other - sometimes totally irrelevant - details and around itself. It can be the beginning of a story, it can be the end of a story, it can be something in-between.

Finally, it may become out as a story. Or I like to think that the story was already there and all that was needed was a silent night and an open ear.

Reviews

[Steve Naylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating 3.5 stars

This is a really hard book to describe. Stian is an expert tracker. He lives in a remote village is engaged to the girl next door. A group of guardians show up with a mission. Their tracker has died and they need someone else to help. Stian knows that he will need the money in order to support his new wife, even though he makes a decent living as a hunter. He goes with the group but nothing is it seems. Turns out the group of guardians he is with is basically on a suicide mission. They are tracking a magical creature that doesn't belong in this world and they have almost no hope of stopping it. I didn't understand this. If I was Stian, I would have left right then. If they die, he will probably die as well. Did they not care that they were consigning him to a death sentence as well? Turns out that Stian has a little bit of magic that he has been using to help him hunt, though he didn't know that before now. He was able to help them and kill the monster, though it took them more than a year. The whole time he couldn't stop talking about how much he loved his fiance and couldn't wait till they were together and could have a life. So, of course, I knew right away that something bad was going to happen. Yep. He returns home and finds that the Council member son is living in his house saying that Stian abandoned it, and his fiance is now married to him and pregnant.

He leaves and travels to a different town about a day away to start over. He has a lot of money and buys a small house and starts his life over. The then learns more about magic and is visited by elves. Elves and Trolls were brought to this world from another world on accident by magicians. The elves are all female and the orcs are all males. In order to reproduce the troll's have to kidnap young girls. The elves have not been able to reproduce at all, at least until they find Stian because of his magic. He then has sex with a bunch of different groups of elves throughout the rest of the story. The women of his village are also trying to set him up with the younger girls in the village. 2 girls are 14 years old and are almost old enough to marry. They are very close and it is decided that it would be okay for him to marry both. That is when his ex-fiance shows up saying that Orcs have taken girls in their village including her sister and she wants help. He goes off and rescues the girls and kills most of the Orcs. Turns out the ex-fiance thought he was dead and was lied to by the council member, but now she loves her husband and her baby. A couple of weeks later his house is burned to the ground. 2 young boys from his old town came to burn it down and kill him. They were told by the town councilman who started the whole thing that Stian could not have possibly killed that many Orcs so he must have been part of the plot to kidnap the girls. The boys families owed that guy money and were told that their debt would be absolved if they killed Stian. Of course none of this could ever be proved. He gets information that he might be in more danger than he thought as the guardians don't like loose ends and he know far to much and has to much of their money. He decides to leave town and go live with the elves.

The reason this one is hard to rate is that the overlying theme I got from this book is that nothing is fair and the world doesn't care. While there were aspects of the story that I liked and thought were interesting, there was this overlying idea that Stian was going to get screwed in the end. It wasn't all dome and gloom. Stian did have some good moments, he just didn't get what he wanted.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

This books was a really weird read. At the beginning the author sets the tone for the book by including some fairly graphic sexual interaction but this is set aside as the protagonist begins their initial adventure. It was this period of the book which I really enjoyed, a lot of the story is plot driven but there was enough characterization thrown in that I began to get a sense of the main character. Additionally there's a magic system that the reader learns about through the experimentation of the main character which is always fun.

If this had continued I would have a much higher rating for the book but about halfway through, the story took a sharp left and suddenly the book seemed to be more of an erotic novel. The initial plot and issues were set aside, a whole new cast of minor characters are introduced. And there is a lot of sex. Like a lot. I think this would have been fine, not my cup of tea, but fine, if I had been expecting it however I was completely blindsided by this almost-genre-shift. I can see why the Author included some of it but, it seems to me, that around half of these scenes could have been deleted with little to no impact on the plot or character motivation.

I'm still going to give the next book a shot but if it seems like the author is taking the same route I'll probably abandon the series.

[Ajit Shekher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read

I like this book, as it is a good page turner, a thriller, something good to pass done time.
But this is not tolkein, not Holmes, not something to savour again and again and again.
Overall a fantasy thriller, with nothing TOO upsetting-- YET. But definitely on the grittier side.

[Bob Reisig · Rating 4 out of 5]

While not a big consumer of fantasy fiction, once I got into this story, it kept me interested. I think it's par for the genre, a young man finds his abilities, struggles with what it means, uses them for good and becomes the hero. You will find trolls, elves and human ne'er-do-wells in this story as enemies as well as tools to be used for the hero to accomplish his tasks. Enjoy.

[m1245 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect! First 5 star this year.
Great story and awesome storytelling. There is ranger, elf, troll, magic, romance and more. What makes this a 5 star for me is the character developement and the relationships between the MC and more. There is quite some sex in it, if that isn't for you. I like it! Even without it (or some) , it would be a great story. But I think it build emotions.

[Ronald L Myers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good

Creative, gripping, fresh...a slower start than I hoped but picked up to racing finish...will read the next for sure.
The story is just starting on SOL.net which whetted my appetite to read the Kindle version.

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pulls you in. You want to know what happens next

Stian is an interesting individual he’s a hunter/provider for his people but is that all he is? Follow this story to read his trials/tribulations/ and triumphs.

[Howard2nd · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Young Man, working to survive history.

Nice balance between internal growth and external challenges. If everybody lies, are the ones you tell yourself more hurtful? Being alone is hard and being part of something more dangerous. Which would you choose?

[Kevin Solecki · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you want read a book, look elsewhere.

First off, I really enjoyed the story. That said, it's not complete. To be complete, in my eyes, you have to have some sort of ending. There is no ending here, just one big cliffhanger.

[Brad Zimmerman · Rating 4 out of 5]

The beginning was a bit awkward but it improved

It wasn't very much later when I was in shadows outside Ake's house - or on the merchant side of it. Luckily that part of the house was clearly separated from the living quarters,

[Ray Knighton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well written but should have a XXX rating

Well written but should have a XXX rating. I do not know if any of my grand kids will read any of my books. This one really good but also explicit!!

[Jesse Deleon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read series for me this summer!

I enjoyed reading this book the start of an excellent adventure series. I look forward to reading more. Thank you Derek Palmer. A new fan!

[Michael Bullers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun read

Fantasy literature is not something I usually read, but this caught my attention. I liked it and I think you will too.

[John Ford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good

A good entry into the book series, I am looking forward to seeing what happens in the next book released.

[Nathanael Keeler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ok

What started as a solidly good fantasy novel devolved when the middle third became soft porn. I still enjoyed the general story but felt the sex was unnecessary and distracting.

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book starts quickly, and grabs the readers attention. Definitely has a lot of sex and fairly vivid situations and story telling. I enjoy the book as a whole and am looking forward to how things progress in book two.