Meredith McCardle is a recovered lawyer who lives in South Florida with her husband and two young daughters. Like her main character, she has a fondness for strong coffee, comfortable pants, and jumping to the wrong conclusions. Unlike her main character, she cannot travel through time. Sadly. Her debut, THE EIGHTH GUARDIAN, will be published by Skyscape/Amazon Children’s in Spring 2014.
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I really, really enjoyed this one.
This book is officially on my favorites list. You may have seen an update somewhere stating I had to force myself to put this book down and I wasn’t exaggerating. This was a story that continually had me saying to myself, “Just one more chapter” and when I finally realized how late it was and that I actually had to function the next day I did it. Nevermind that the second I got home from work I immediately opened it back up until I finished. So…if that isn’t justification enough for you to want to read this, please continue reading my review.
Amanda is a junior at The Peel Academy and to say that this school is pretty selective in their student population might be an understatement. See, this is where the CIA, FBI, and other government agencies go to find the talent for their organizations. Not only are the students smart, they can fight, shoot, and protect themselves.
With all of that said, the book opens on Testing Day. This is a random day each year where all juniors and seniors are forced to prove their abilities within the testing environments created by the academy. As a junior, Amanda knows that she doesn’t really have a chance of graduating (it hasn’t happened in a really long time) and she is ok with that. She has Abe (her boyfriend) and a plan for when they do graduate. However, as Amanda is testing, she notices one of the observers continues to watch her closely and even though she blew the first test, he continues to stay and observe. This in itself is odd but the way he watches her makes her begin to think something could be different this year.
As you can imagine, Amanda was right to think something was up. Post testing, her name is announced as a graduate and she is immediately taken out of the room. From here on out, the book is non-stop action and mystery. I admit there were absolutely some things that I didn’t see coming and I love it when that happens. Add to this the idea of time travel, historical events, and being able to successfully tie everything together and I have to applaud McCardle. She created a story that was exciting, mysterious, and that I didn’t want to put down until I found out everything that was going on.
Now, I can’t say much about what really is going on outside of the fact that Amanda finds out she was chosen to join a super secret organization called the Annum Guard and is questioning whether this is really the right place for her. She is also introduced to the other guards who all go by a code name…in their cases a color (Yellow, Violet, Indigo, Green, Blue, Orange, and Red). What I can tell you is that I loved the characters in this story. Amanda (Iris) is sarcastic and tough and it is clear that she is loyal to the people she loves. She also hasn’t had an easy life and there were times where I just wanted to climb into the pages and give her a hug. Because of the things that have happened in her life, she wants to hang onto the good things and that includes Abe.
The other guards were great too. We do get more exposure to some more than others but I think that was good because otherwise it might have gotten too overwhelming. Yellow is definitely more than I expected and I really did like her. She made Amanda see things that she normally wouldn’t have and I think she was a clear factor in her growth through the story. I would love to learn more about her background as well as Indigo’s. Both made an impact on Amanda and I will be interested to see what happens next for all of these characters.
Ok – so I hope I didn’t ramble on too much but if you take one thing away from this review, hopefully it is the fact that I really, really loved it and hope that you do too. If you are looking for a story filled with action and mystery definitely check this book out when you can. I will just be sitting here impatiently patiently waiting for the next book.
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