adventure fiction | Musings of the Monster Librarian

Book Review: The Blood Guard by Carter Roy

Two Lions, 2014

ISBN: 9781477847251

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition

The Blood Guard is the first book in a trilogy by Carter Roy. In this snarky comic adventure, we meet Evelyn Ronan Truelove (who simply wishes to be called Ronan). Ronan is an oddball. A bit of a loner, his mother has had him heavily programmed with gymnastics, kendo, judo, and wilderness survival classes since he was 5. At the age of 13, Ronan discovers his mother waiting for him after school, and well before any extracurricular classes begin. She drives him off to the train station, where she has a fight with some shadowy figures in suits, and Ronan learns her mom is part of an ancient organization, The Blood Guard. When Ronan’s mom disappears, he suddenly finds himself in the company of a pickpocket named Jack and a sarcastic girl named Greta, who inform Ronan that he is to be inducted into the Blood Guard.

The Blood Guard protects the 36 “pure souls” of the world from the evil intentions of the Bend Sinister. The Bend Sinister is a band of villains whose sole purpose is to cause havoc by toying with the number of pure people in the world. Great and terrible historical events have occurred as a consequence of the Bend Sinister successfully removing even just a few of the pure ones.

I love this book. It’s warm, funny and very irreverent. Carter Roy’s command of snarky humor is most excellent. Highly recommended for young adult readers, particularly if you like action comedies or fantasy adventures.

Contains: Violence and light profanity.

Reviewed by Benjamin Franz

Gasp…The “H-Word” Appears in the Wall Street Journal!

What can I say? It wasn’t in the title, and maybe it was accidental, but in Friday’s Wall Street Journal, Alexandra Alter, in her article “A Crime Wave in Publishing”, used… the “H-word”. You know the one I mean.

While Ms. Alter’s focus was on crime fiction, apparently that’s too narrow a focus for most publishers, who now throw a whole bucket full of genres under the heading “suspense”. Ms. Alter specifically mentioned Mullholland Press, a new imprint at Little, Brown. Mullholland’s lineup includes a horror novel (gasp!) by the writers of Saw, and is looking for books in a variety of genres, including…

…supernatural thrillers, hardboiled detective fiction, espionage, horror, dystopian thrillers, and high concept adventure fiction.

They’re looking for the next James Patterson, but who knows, maybe they’ll find the next Stephen King. Kudos to Little, Brown and Mulholland Press’ editor John Schoenfelder for having the vision to notice that “those books” (as an editor from Knopf referred to them in an earlier WSJ article– see my response here) have a hungry audience. And to Ms. Alter, who distinguished horror fiction from other genres, including supernatural fiction.

One day maybe she’ll write a whole article.