REVIEW: The Wounded Guardian by Duncan Lay

Title: The Wounded Guardian (The Dragon Sword Histories #1)

Author: Duncan Lay

Genre: Epic Fantasy

Publication Date: 2009

Publisher: Harper Voyager

Format: Paperback

Pages: 626

Rating: 5/5

Martil is a haunted man - a war hero, now derided as the 'Butcher of Bellic'. Leaving his beloved homeland he is set upon by bandits and tricked into taking a small child, Karia, to her uncle. But they only find one ex-bandit in the town, along with the Dragon Sword, a magical relic belonging to the rulers of Norstalos. Norstalos's first-ever queen is trying to keep her crown. Her cousin, Duke Gello, wants it and is prepared to do anything to get it. Martil can find no way out of caring for a child, fighting for a queen and discovering that even a magical sword is no guarantee of victory...

This review is going to be quite long, so I suggest maybe getting yourself a cup of tea or coffee and some popcorn or something while you sit back and read it.

The Wounded Guardian first came into my hands in May of 2012 at Supanova, which is a sort of much, much smaller version of Comic Con here in Australia. The Dymocks stand was giving away one of two free books with every purchase- the first choice was some robot book which my friend chose and the second was this. That was all great but then I got home and the book joined my dreaded TBR pile. I promptly forgot about it...for two years.

Flash-forward to now, and during one of my many stalking sessions of the Dymocks events page, I found out that Duncan Lay was going to be at my local Dymocks store. So I dragged my lovely friend, Hannah, down to meet him. Can I just say that Duncan Lay is one of the most amazing authors I’ve ever met? I don’t think I can ever put into words how lovely he was. One thing I can say for sure is that neither Hannah nor I had ever seen an author talk so passionately about their book. His pitch for his two series were amazing, it was like listening to one of those really dramatic actors read out this amazing, mind-blowing blurb of the book. I wish all of you could get the chance to listen to him talk about it, because I’m sure you’d pick up the book.

Anyway, enough about that- it’s time for the actual review. I’m going to start this out with two admissions. One, I don’t really have that much experience with fantasy novels. Or rather, I didn’t before I read this book and went on a fantasy frenzy. Two, I probably never would have picked this book up if it was not for this event. This wasn’t due to the book at all, but more because I had no idea what the book was about, and that sucks, because I would have missed out. I’ll just say it now, this book is amazing.  It’s definitely up there with my favourite books of all time (and I literally just finished it last week).

The cast of characters in The Wounded Guardian is amazing. Two of the biggest characters are Martil- a war hero who is tortured by his crimes and Karia- a little girl. In order to avoid spoilers, I won’t tell you how these two come together but I will tell that they are amazing characters. The two of them play off each other really well because they are so different, but also quite similar. I will totally admit, there are some unexpected ‘aw’ moments between those two. The queen of this kingdom is another one of my favourite characters. Her name is Merren and she is badass, not in the fighting/assassin sort of way but in a strong female lead kind of way but more than that, she’s intelligent and determined but still a little bit vulnerable at times. I think she is well on the way to becoming one of my favourite characters of all time.

The story itself is wonderful. I was a little bit hesitant going into this, because it is quite a thick book (626 pages in total). I was worried it might be a little bit too heavy and dense, especially being a fantasy novel but once I started it was a different story. I found it incredibly easy to read, so much so that I read the first 130 pages in the one sitting. I’m not going to lie, it did take me quite a while to get through the book, over a month in fact. This had nothing to do with the book itself, but rather the fact that I was stuck for time and so usually I could only read a couple of pages at a time. It was definitely the perfect book to read in a nice little corner of the library during my first two weeks of University ever.

One of the reasons I wanted to write such a long review for this book (other than this book being seriously amazing) was because this really doesn’t have that many ratings on Goodreads and I really think it should. This is an amazing start to a trilogy and I can’t wait to read the other two books which currently tease me from their place on the shelf. If somehow, my gushing about this book hasn’t made you want to read then let me try and convince you one more time...PLEASE READ THIS BOOK!! PLEASE! I NEED SOMEONE TO DISCUSS THE AMAZINGNESS WITH!

 

Ely's Recommendations #1

So a few months back, I made a post recommending books to a friend of mine and I really enjoyed that. So I thought I'd start a new little series in which I recommend about some of my favourite books. In each part, I'm going to name five books/series and then talk about them a bit. This is mostly YA, but I'll include other genres now and again.

1. The Wounded Guardian by Duncan Lay | Goodreads
I have yet to write a proper review of this book, but there was no way I could not put it on this list so a review will probably be up next week. To put it simply, I adored this book. I don't usually read epic fantasy novels, but this one just completely blew my mind. I think part of the reason I love this book so much was that I was lucky enough to meet Duncan Lay last month. I can't even describe how amazing he was at pitching his books to my friend and I. I'll talk about my thoughts more in my actual review. But, if you only pick up one book from this list, make it this one.

2. These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner  | Goodreads
This one has a bit more hype surrounding it than most of the books on this list but I just couldn't not talk about it. I haven't written a proper review for this one either (yet), but I'm actually planning on re-reading it next month- the fact that I only read it in January should speak volumes as to my feelings towards this book. I honestly stayed up until 2am reading this and then was unable to sleep the rest of the night because I was shaking from this book.  I really can't even describe how much I love this book or how many feels I felt. You just have to read it to understand it.

3. Kill the Music by Nansi Kunze | Goodreads
Do you think I've talked about this book enough? Nope, nope, nope. I don't think there are enough words in the whole world to describe my love for this book and for Nansi. This book is so much fun to read, there's a bit of mystery, bit of music and a whole lot of drama and romance. Plus, Marius is totally the love of my life. But even more than that, Nansi is honestly the most wonderful person ever. I've been lucky enough to meet her twice (totally by accident both times), and I can't even put into words how amazing she is. My new goal in life is to get everyone to read all three of Nansi's books. Also, you can see my review here.

4. The Wrong Boy by Suzy Zail | Goodreads
I found out about this book through a book club I was attending at my school in which we read through books that were nominated for awards. As soon as I found out that this book was about the Holocaust, I borrowed it and that was where my love began. Anyone who's been following this blog for a while is likely to know that I adore anything WWII related, this was absolutely no exception. I think my favourite thing about this one, is that it's different- it's set in Auschwitz, but the main character is provided with a unique opportunity, to play piano for the commander. Needless to say, there were many tears throughout this book.

5. Destiny Road by Melissa Wray | Goodreads
This book was actually sent to us for review by Melissa, but I enjoyed it so much that I wanted to include it here. Destiny Road is very different to the other books on this list, it's a contemporary but rather than centering on romance, it focuses on family. I really love stories that are about families and friends as much as I like books about romance. The issues in this book are all based off Melissa's own experiences, which makes it even more realistic and enjoyable. Plus, it's set in Australia and what kind of Aussie doesn't like a book set here? You can see my review here.


So that was my first recommendations post. Somehow, all of these authors turned out to be Australian authors (I believe Meagan Spooner sees herself as an honourary Aussie), which awesome! I hope some of you consider these books because they are honestly amazing and deserve more hype (and ratings on Goodreads). I hope you all enjoyed this post, I'm considering doing one of these every month but we shall see.

Thank you!