"Guardian"

by Rachel Morgan, Creepy Hollow #1, YA, 2012, ebook Kindle edition, approx. 55p, rating=3.5
Source:  received from author in exchange for an honest review

1. Receive assignment. 2. Save a life. 3. Sleep. 4. Repeat.
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 one of her assignments—a human boy who shouldn’t even be able to see her—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? But Nate and Vi are about to land themselves in even bigger trouble—and it’ll take all Vi’s training to get them out alive. (author website)

I didn't realize that this was a novella (I have no sense of page numbers when it comes to ebooks) so you can imagine my surprise when the book ended at about an hour's reading stating ..to be continued.  I wanted to hunt down the author and bark, "No you didn't!".  I was initially upset as you can see but after browsing through the book's website for some answers, I was pacified. Apparently this is going to be a series of short novellas, an installment a month (started this past March).  Never heard of such a thing.  As I understand it, it will play out like that of a TV series but in monthly episodes.  That's pretty cool!  According to the website, there will be at least seven installments. 

This was a great start to the series.  The story moved along quickly and you were introduced to a whole new fantasy world full of characters, rules, and terms.  Simple enough, the top two rules that faerie in training received was: 1) Never reveal yourself to a human and 2) Never bring a human into the fae realm.  Of course, Violet ends up breaking those two rules when it came to her assignment to protect Nate.  Nate saw the ninja fighting Violet did with the reptiscilla that was to harm him.  He also manages to grab onto Violet as she was to return to Creepy Hollow and he passed through unscathed even though humans would not survive such a journey.  Looks like there's something special about Nate?  And so the story goes with the adventure of Violet returning Nate back home, give him a potion to erase the memory of this other world, and still graduate.  Of course, Zell and Drake had to spice things up and this journey was going to be forked.  So there we await what will happen next in book two.  Oh, did I forget to mention that Violet and Nate kissed twice already?  Indeed, an example of the fast pace this book launches the reader into. 

This was well written.  The story telling was descriptive and entertaining.  It was just incredibly too short, so I felt cheated and lost for proper rating.  I didn't expect a novella.  It affected my experience with the book.  My bad for not knowing the conversion to word count!  Nonetheless, it got me looking forward to the next installment so that's mighty telling.  Overall, this promises potential to be a remarkable series.  Great job Ms. Morgan!

If you like twisty, action filled, fantasy story packed in a short time then this book is for you.  If you don't like to wait so long for an installment then this is your series.  I didn't like the abrupt ending at first but I think I'm warming up to the idea of quick episodes.

Guardian is on sale on Amazon for 99 cents.  While you're there, might as well purchase book two, Labyrinth, also for 99 cents.  Great deals for quick and entertaining reads.  

Book Trailer:  Creepy Hollow Series