THE BLOOD GUARD - Carter Roy


 Ronan Truelove is just an ordinary thirteen year old, with very ordinary parents - or so he believes, until one day when his mother 'abducts' him from school and tears off on a high speed car chase. His father, she informs Ronan, has been kidnapped, and those kidnappers are now after Ronan as well. Kidnapped? His boring, nerdy dad?

Ronan's mother is not the ordinary soccer mom that Ronan thought.  She is actually a member of an ancient, sword-wielding order of knights known as the Blood Guard, bound to protect the Pure - a specific number of individuals on whose shoulders lie the fate of the world.

Suddenly Ronan understands why his mother had him enrolled in after-school classes of gymnastics, martial arts, survival training, etc.  He has been groomed to take on the mantle of a Blood Guard!

His mother sets him off on his own and he joins forces with two unlikely individuals - Greta, a girl from his school who he never really liked very much, and Jack, a teenaged pick-pocket.  His mother's parting words were 'trust no one' - but Ronan will need to rely on his own instincts and trust his companions in order to avoid the decidedly evil organization out to kidnap him.

This book is an exciting adventure tale. Secret organizations and spies, swords and the supernatural - this hits all the right marks to draw in a lot of middle grade/YA readers. Ronan is precisely the kind of protagonist a lot of young readers would fantasize themselves as being (like Harry Potter or Percy Jackson) - someone who thought they were ordinary but are part of something much larger and only just now learning about it. His partners (like Hermione and Ron or Grover and Annabeth - to stay with the previous two examples) are more than just sidekicks, but integral to his ability to achieve his goals.

The action is pretty much non-stop from the very first page and author Carter Roy really does a fine job of building the story amid constant chases and character development.  

I enjoyed this a lot and have actively sought out subsequent volumes in the series (sadly, it's only a trilogy as far as I can tell).

Looking for a good book? The Blood Guard by Carter Roy is a fast-paced, high-action story for middle grade and YA readers that should be recommended for anyone asking what to read after reading Harry Potter or Percy Jackson.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

4 stars

* * * * * *

The Blood Guard

author: Carter Roy

series: The Blood Guard #1

publisher: Two Lions

ISBN: 1477847251

hardcover, 320 pages

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

VINYL RESTING PLACE - Olivia Blacke

Image
 Juni Jessup and her two sister, Tansy and Maggie, have gone into business together in their hometown of Cedar River, Texas, opening a combination record store and coffee shop. Vinyl LPs are making a comeback after all, despite critics thinking the medium was dead.  But speaking of 'dead' ... finding a dead body in the supply closet just as they are looking to have a grand opening is not part of the plan.  Juni's life gets more complicated when their uncle, Calvin, already a suspect in the murder, disappears. And the police officer leading the investigation is Juni's EX-boyfriend (who passive-aggressively keeps putting himself back into her life). Convinced that her uncle would never murder anyone, Juni sets out to prove his innocence - which isn't easy since he's making himself look guilty - because Calvin is family and family is EVERYthing to Juni. As readers of my blog know, I'm not a big fan of most cozy mysteries, but the setting caught my eye and my in...
Read more

THE WALLED CITY - Ryan Graudin

Image
  Jin and her sister, Mei Yee, were taken and sold and then sent to the lawless Walled City to serve as prostitutes or slaves to anyone willing to pay. Jin managed to escape her captivity, but not the Walled City and she now lurks about, disguised as a boy and is trying to track down the brothel where her sister is still captive. Jin will work odd delivery jobs to earn a small bit of money and hopefully have a legitimate means of coming in contact with her sister's captors.  This is how she meets up with Dai, a mysterious boy who has somehow managed to avoid running with any of the gangs in the city but he seems to have his own unusual connections, which Jon could desperately use if she has any hope of finding Mei Yee. But Dai has his own desperate needs.  The story is told from the different perspectives of each character and we do bounce around quite a bit as the chapters are generally short. This never bothered me, which is slightly unusual as often I find this techni...
Read more

THE RAVEN THIEF - Gigi Pandian

Image
 With Tempest Raj now a member of the company, Secret Staircase Construction (a company who, as their title suggests, builds mystery-themed, secret rooms inside homes) has finished their first job. Their client now wants to celebrate to kick off her new beginning - new home and new life now that she's divorced from her cheating ex-husband, famous mystery author Corbin Colt. First up, a mock séance to remove any trace of Corbin from the property, led by Tempest's friend, Sanjay.   But during that séance, while all those gathered sat in a dark room holding hands, Corbin's dead body crashes the party, falling across the table in front of everyone. There were eight people in the room, and they were all holding hands, but all the evidence points to one of them being the murderer.  Suspicions point to Ash, Tempest's grandfather, because he was the only one with Corbin's blood on him. Of course, as a doctor, he was also the only one who checked on the body - ...
Read more