Book 1 of the Unlikely Guardian series opens with a jolt of pure action. Rose, a Fae relic hunter and royal arms mistress, battles a millennia-old demon guardian inside a hidden temple in Iraq to recover the Star of Azothine, a cursed sapphire artifact her family has hunted for years. The fight is fast, brutal, and beautifully choreographed, and it establishes Rose immediately as a formidable warrior comfortable operating far outside the human world most readers know. The chapter’s real gut-punch lands the moment Rose emerges victorious. A phone call from her Aunt Allura delivers devastating news: Rose’s older sister Lili and her human husband Bobby have died in a car accident, leaving behind two young children, four-year-old Sadie and infant Addison. The abrupt tonal shift, from triumphant demon-slaying to grief and dawning suspicion, is exactly the kind of emotional Read more…