The Rampart Guards is the debut urban fantasy series for young adults by Wendy Terrien. After the disappearance of his mother, Jason and his family move to a small town. After being attacked by strange flying creatures, he leans a big secret about his family: they protect the world from things like kappa, skyfish, and other cryptozoological creatures. He quickly finds himself in a life and death struggle as he’s thrown headlong in the middle of a brewing war. Not knowing who to trust and facing betrayal from an unexpected source, Jason must ultimately decide who lives and who dies.
This is going to have a few spoilers. It was unavoidable, so I’ll notate where they start so you can skip over them.
I thought that the story was very good. The characters were well rounded and likable. It was a little slow getting started, but picked up quickly. I wasn’t able to put it down, and read it in about a day and a half. I think that only thing I found that needed some work was the timeline. It was hard to tell how much time was passing for the characters, making it feel a little choppy in a few spots. I really liked the background on the cryptids and that the author didn’t go crazy throwing them at you right off the bat. You got to see a few different types in the book and weren’t overwhelmed.
Spoilers! (Who read that in Rivers Song’s voice?)
The biggest draw of the story for me was seeing how Jason handled the truth about his mother. His war of emotions came off very realistically. It was very difficult for him to reconcile who he thought her to be (a great, loving mom) to the lunatic she really was. She was a real piece of work. She manipulated all three of them, brain washed the youngest, and pretty much didn’t care if they lived or die. And it says a lot about Jason’s character that he still tried to save her at the end.
Spoilers are over!
Overall, it was a very good book & I thoroughly enjoyed it. This is the first in a four part series, and I am looking forward to seeing where it goes. The book releases on February 26th, and will be available in multiple formats on Amazon.
I received the above mentioned book for free to help facilitate my review. All opinions are 100% my own.
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