Book Review: The Guardian of the Palace by Steven J. Morris

Thank you so much to By the Book VBP tours for having me on the Instagram tour for The Guardian of the Palace!  This is a fast paced, urban fantasy + invasion story mash-up that surprisingly works really well.  I would recommend to contemporary fantasy fans!

Bookish Quick Facts:

• Title: The Guardian of the Palace
• Series: The Guardian League, #1
• Author: Steven J. Morris
• Publisher & Release: Indie, 01/22/21
• Length: 358 pg
• Rate & Recommend: 🌟🌟🌟🌟✨ for fans of the genres!

The Plot & Story: So the book actually doesn’t list a synopsis, and I am going to give you the key points really quick.  There is a huge four-block-wide building going up in NYC called The Palace, and Garnet “Red” Hernandez is hired on as a security head as construction continues.  She is ex military special ops, and her team of three friends are the other main human characters of the story.  Red sees something strange in the lower levels of The Palace, and before we know it there is a two fronted alien invasion going on.  The fun part is finding out why, how, and who exactly these invaders are.  To what lengths will the Guardians go to save Earth?

The prologue was incredibly gripping, and the book never let me go until the end…and I’m glad that book two is coming out soon.

The Characters: We also see a bit of Red’s military career to show where she and the rest of the characters came from, how they bonded, and what kind of people they are.  Red is a strong person who believes in rights, humanity, and the power of a strong team.  Rocks, Bear, and Scan are the rest of her group and I liked them too. The banter is interesting, they seem like real people, and extended amounts of good dialogue can be hard to find these days.  The chapters tend to stay pretty short and are mainly told from Red’s point of view.

I REALLY like the non-human characters.  Let’s just say there is an Elf, a troll, and a dwarf, and they are a little bit hilarious in their own ways.

The World Building: One of my favorite aspects was how Morris was able to blend the non-human and fantasy aspects into the modern day setting, giving plausible explanations for non-fantasy readers to follow fairly easily.   He gives enough info for the Infected and the other aliens that the explanations make sense, without doing any huge info dumps.

Misc: The place where I docked half a star was that when the other characters start having point of view chapters, I didn’t think their voices sounded distinct enough.  Not so much Agent Smith, but Rocks and Scan sounded very similar, and Grundle sounded extremely human in his thought processes.

I like how towards the end, the characters for the next book are set up and introduced more. Morris presented a clear path going forward, with a bit of a cliffhanger to keep me wanting to see the next book.

Thankfully, book two, Stars in the Sand, is coming out soon! I will be touring that book on June 2nd so keep an eye out for the review!

Giveaway! If you think this book sounds good, I am currently giving away a SIGNED, FINISHED COPY on my bookstagram! Go enter now  by clicking on this link1