Book review: Guardians Inc.: The Cypher

Guardians Inc.: The Cypher
by Julian Rosado-Machain




I got this book free as part of a librarything program and wrote up my review there ages ago. But you can get it on amazon for free right now and you can also get it for free on Barnes and Noble, too, so I thought this would be a good excuse to revisit my review:

I *love* the world here, and I'm loathe to say much more about it lest I spoil the discovery for someone else. Adventure, strange magics, unusual creatures, a special library, and a teenaged boy and his grandfather at the centre of it all. The characters don't feel fully fleshed out yet, but I have faith that they'll grow to be as deep as the world and its history and magic apparently are.

My one complaint is that although the author had me believing in animated grotesques and magical libraries, I utterly didn't believe the "romance" and I was so skeptical that I found it distracting and was kind of hoping for some variant of an "it was all a dream" explanation. Surely if you can make robots and centaurs seem reasonable, it can't be that hard to portray a teenager's crush?

That complaint aside, I really enjoyed this and am looking forwards to future stories!

In short, the world is amazing and I recommend the book. There are libraries of awesomeness and magical doorways used to get the best food the world over, which is totally a thing I would do if I had a magical doorway of that sort. I even recommend it for your children as long as they're old enough to be critical about the romance. I don't know how long it'll stay free, maybe a week? So go now and take advantage of the promo!