Hello everyone!
But this series was special from the minute I reached for it.
I really don't even know what it is about it, the combination of romance and mystery, maybe, or the writing style, but it hooked me all the way through and now I can't wait to continue with the third one, knowing there's more to come.
My excitement when I saw just which one is releasing in the summer was palpable, let me tell you!
But first, we have to recap and review the second book, since, you know, you can't just skip steps, not in a series that's so interconnected as this one.
Sarah Westill was on to something when she started writing her Guardians of Sziveria.
And her second book continues proving it more and more.
Raiventon, everybody.
You'll find links to the previous installments in the series down at the bottom of the page, as usual.
To quickly recap though: Guardians of Sziveria tells how our world ran into a cataclysmic event that literally destroyed most of the inhabited sections, sending humanity back into what's literally called the Dark Ages. They've slowly been emerging again, with limited, primitive technology, and only a few territories are actually formed into countries surviving in the harsher weather.
Skills are now passed down as genetic traits and people with those traits are highly revered, but there's trouble a-brewing in Sziveria: not only do they have to contend with the Human Rabies Syndrome that someone is apparently trying to weaponize, but there's drugs being moved through, lethal drugs, and something bigger is happening behind the scenes.
This is why the team we meet in previous installments, like a Special Ops team really, has been recalled home, but more specifically, Kevin, their Interceptor, has been recalled to make sure his wife of four years (but still a perfect stranger) is safe.
See, he works for her father - well, daddy-o kind of has one of the biggest says in the First Intelligence Office - and he married Raina to protect her, but was then literally shipped out and hasn't been anywhere near her since then. Now, it looks like she's in some kind of trouble and only Kevin can really do anything about it because of his skills, and his team.
As it turns out, Raina is a bit of an idiot to start with.
She's also a Gen-Heir, but in logistics, and is attempting to build a client list from out of her father's clutches with the help of none other than our sleazy friend who abducted Katria back in book one (not that she knows). Kevin can smell a rat soon enough, however, especially after someone sends people to kill him in the family home for a second time.
He discovers that the sleazy guy seduced one of the house maids to have a key made, so that he'd have access (and other nefarious purposes like matching Raina at social functions), but there's more to it than that which is about to fall on their heads like an avalanche.
See, someone REALLY wants Kevin (and his super fast reflexes) out of the way, which is why they try to scare Raina and plan a trap for Kevin, not that anyone falls for it. Raina also admits to Kevin she may have done something stupid when he gets home one time and just manages to rip the sleazy idiot off her before anything bad occurs.
In trying to build her own clientele, she's inadvertently played into the hands of the people Kevin's team is trying to get to, because they've been moving stuff with her help, illegally - turns out, they're encroaching into uninhabited, technically wild territories, but not sharing the information with actual governing bodies.
Of course just as more of these revelations happen Raina gets kidnapped, and she learns the heard way that sleazy people your father doesn't want around you usually have a reason that pissed him off, but luckily Kevin and the team are much better than any other mercenaries on the planet, so he nips her out of there and they head on off to his childhood home, since he wasn't always a ranked Guardian like he is now, and neither was his family.
That's an additional problem between the two: Kevin is supposed to divorce her after this is all over, and he didn't really have any say at all in their marriage while she technically did and added the 'for life' clause in there out of petulance. But she learns that everything in her life has a reason, and after nearly losing Kevin to sepsis from a wound complication (for which she has to call the team in to help), Raina decides she's going to fight for their marriage, and to hell with everything else.
Because even if Kevin loses his ranked status (and she with him if they remain married, something her father isn't planning on), she's staying with him.
They return to civilization together and lure their sleazy friend out to be able to get the original manifests which the nefarious group has had Raina manipulate for them, and while they're discussing possibilities of exploring further in now, in other territories, Raina tells Kevin she's pregnant, and the two of them, with their secrets all out in the open and Raina well aware just who it is she's married to, embark on this new life together while danger still stirs in the background.
Listen, I am so invested in Sziveria now I needed to grab the third book in the series RIGHT AWAY AFTER FINISHING THIS ONE.
It's that impossible to put it down.
The plot continues and thickens for our heroes as the focus shifts from the team leader Sean to team Interceptor, Kevin. The couple find their footing together, learn their weaknesses, mistakes, and strengths, go through a couple of ups and downs, and eventually realize that the freedom of choice is what everyone should have. Along with love.
And honestly, how can you NOT love that?
The author continues to build on the world of Sziveria and neighbouring countries, introducing things like mercenaries from Cairo, and a shipping heiress from Italyssa who I REALLY hope gets her happy ending eventually, not to mention pulls other supporting characters further into the fold, like Asherwick, the local investigator, and Cora, Mason's twin sister.
This all serves for a wonderful set-up against the backdrop of a world that's basically still recovering from that cataclysmic event that sent them literally to the Dark Ages again, and now individuals with genetically-inherited abilities are basically hot commodities.
Plus we still haven't ENTIRELY unraveled the mystery as to why the team was recalled back in the first place, but we know it's big and it's starting to look like a legitimate, world-wide conspiracy.
And I AM HERE FOR IT.
Kevin is my kind of hero, honour-bound, someone who understands choice and the lack of it (which is the main premise behind the story), who also happens to be a master at what he does and who feels everything so desperately even if he keeps it all clamped down shut.
Raina, in turn, is realistic, emotional, compassionate, but highly logical and capable of looking at a situation and dealing with it without walking off in a hissy fit, but rather taking it as something meant for the long haul, which I ADORE.
Between the two, and their miraculous discovery at the end of the book, this is one worth reading and remembering.
They are definitely the stars of their own show but their supporting cast gets a spot in the limelight as well, leading easily and seamlessly into book three. I'm being entirely honest when I say I can't wait to get my hands on Kynhaven, and I really, REALLY can't wait for the summer release of Asherwick.
20/10 recommend!
Listen, I am so invested in Sziveria now I needed to grab the third book in the series RIGHT AWAY AFTER FINISHING THIS ONE.
It's that impossible to put it down.
The plot continues and thickens for our heroes as the focus shifts from the team leader Sean to team Interceptor, Kevin. The couple find their footing together, learn their weaknesses, mistakes, and strengths, go through a couple of ups and downs, and eventually realize that the freedom of choice is what everyone should have. Along with love.
And honestly, how can you NOT love that?
The author continues to build on the world of Sziveria and neighbouring countries, introducing things like mercenaries from Cairo, and a shipping heiress from Italyssa who I REALLY hope gets her happy ending eventually, not to mention pulls other supporting characters further into the fold, like Asherwick, the local investigator, and Cora, Mason's twin sister.
This all serves for a wonderful set-up against the backdrop of a world that's basically still recovering from that cataclysmic event that sent them literally to the Dark Ages again, and now individuals with genetically-inherited abilities are basically hot commodities.
Plus we still haven't ENTIRELY unraveled the mystery as to why the team was recalled back in the first place, but we know it's big and it's starting to look like a legitimate, world-wide conspiracy.
And I AM HERE FOR IT.
Kevin is my kind of hero, honour-bound, someone who understands choice and the lack of it (which is the main premise behind the story), who also happens to be a master at what he does and who feels everything so desperately even if he keeps it all clamped down shut.
Raina, in turn, is realistic, emotional, compassionate, but highly logical and capable of looking at a situation and dealing with it without walking off in a hissy fit, but rather taking it as something meant for the long haul, which I ADORE.
Between the two, and their miraculous discovery at the end of the book, this is one worth reading and remembering.
They are definitely the stars of their own show but their supporting cast gets a spot in the limelight as well, leading easily and seamlessly into book three. I'm being entirely honest when I say I can't wait to get my hands on Kynhaven, and I really, REALLY can't wait for the summer release of Asherwick.
20/10 recommend!
xx
*image not mine
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