{"id":10418,"date":"2024-11-05T22:04:34","date_gmt":"2024-11-06T02:04:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/?p=10418"},"modified":"2024-11-05T22:10:45","modified_gmt":"2024-11-06T02:10:45","slug":"book-review-the-guardians-gambit-the-felinity-chronicles-book-1-by-jr-konkol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/book-review-the-guardians-gambit-the-felinity-chronicles-book-1-by-jr-konkol\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: The Guardian’s Gambit (The Felinity Chronicles Book 1) by JR Konkol"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Guardian\u2019s Gambit (The Felinity Chronicles Book 1) <\/em>by JR Konkol<\/p>\n

Black Rose Publishing, 2024<\/p>\n

ISBN: 9781685135058<\/p>\n

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition<\/p>\n

Buy:\u00a0\u00a0Bookshop.org<\/a> |\u00a0Amazon.com<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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A superbly enthralling fantasy tale of cats, magic, and alternate dimensions, The Guardian\u2019s Gambit<\/em> is an absolute must-read.\u00a0 It\u2019s the best animal-centered story I\u2019ve read since Tad Williams\u2019s Tailchaser\u2019s Song<\/em> came out all those years ago.\u00a0 Fantasy fans, you do not want to miss this one.<\/p>\n

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The story is told in third person, with the reader getting the thoughts of four cats: Gaius, Ajax, Loki, and Shaman.\u00a0 It\u2019s clear from the writing the author knows cats very well: he has all their typical mannerisms and actions down perfectly. \u00a0Where the story excels is in how he incorporates these into the fantasy elements of the story. For example, we all know cats sleep a great deal.\u00a0 In the book, when asleep, they enter the Dreaming, an alternate reality loosely based on the mundane world, where most of the story takes place.\u00a0 It\u2019s a fascinating place of magic and horrible monsters, where the cats fight to the last claw to preserve their own reality.\u00a0 The enemies in the Dreaming are legion, from amped-up coyotes to giant mutant spiders.\u00a0 There\u2019s a good deal of world building involved, complete with many cat-centric terms invented for the story.\u00a0 The author deserves credit for weaving them into the narrative in a way that avoids reader confusion, dropping little reminders when needed.\u00a0 It\u2019s a sprawling but tightly-written story that\u2019s impossible to avoid getting pulled into.<\/p>\n

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With a great storyline, you need great characters that the readers will be invested in, and Gaius, Ajax, Loki, and Shaman certainly fit the bill.\u00a0 They have differing personalities, physical abilities and magic powers that complement each other and strengthen the group as a whole.\u00a0 Gaius is the leader and thinker, Ajax the muscle, and Loki the clever one, while Shaman\u2019s abilities as a magician develop over the course of the tale (tail?), and are one of the central tenets of the story.\u00a0 There\u2019s also a strong supporting cast of other cats and ghosts, who help, and sometimes hinder, the four companions.\u00a0 There\u2019s plenty of excitement, but also genuine emotional heft to some scenes.\u00a0 Loki\u2019s entrapment is enough to cause reader panic, and his pondering on the merits of being a warrior at the expense of a normal life is genuinely touching.\u00a0 The protagonists pull you in hard, and reader emotions will ride up and down with them as they face myriad dangers.<\/p>\n

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Bottom line: for fantasy readers, this is a “do NOT miss”, and one of the best of 2024.\u00a0 Highly recommended.<\/p>\n

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Reviewed by Murray Samuelson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Guardian\u2019s Gambit (The Felinity Chronicles Book 1) by JR Konkol Black Rose Publishing, 2024 ISBN: 9781685135058 Available: Paperback, Kindle edition Buy:\u00a0\u00a0Bookshop.org |\u00a0Amazon.com     A superbly enthralling fantasy tale of cats, magic, and alternate dimensions, The Guardian\u2019s Gambit is an absolute must-read.\u00a0 It\u2019s the best animal-centered story I\u2019ve read since Tad Williams\u2019s Tailchaser\u2019s Song<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5771,2375,3274,473,5772,5770,5769],"class_list":["post-10418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-animal-fantasy","tag-animal-stories","tag-cats","tag-fantasy-fiction","tag-jr-konkol","tag-the-felinity-chronicles","tag-the-guardians-gambit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10418"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10425,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10418\/revisions\/10425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}