2013-11-20

The Guardians

Ava’s life is...complicated.
After all, it’s not every day a girl learns she’s not entirely human, or unlocks hidden powers strong enough to make even the First Race sit up and take notice. After surviving an attempted kidnapping and standing up to the Race’s Ruling Council, Ava Michaels returns to college and what she hopes is a normal life. But Ava quickly realizes that for her, normal may not even exist anymore.
In fact, the Council wants her under their control, and they’re not the only ones. The mysterious Rogues have a plan of their own, and it turns out Ava’s a big part of it, whether she wants to be or not.
On top of that, her new relationship is tested in ways she never expected. Her boyfriend, Caleb Foster, has disappeared—accused of betraying the Race—and Ava herself stands implicated in a crime she didn’t commit.
Clearing their names will mean uncovering a web of deceit and intrigue with Ava woven right in the center. To unravel the strands, she joins forces with some unlikely allies; a Protector who once haunted her nightmares, a young girl with secrets as unexpected as Ava’s, and a group of rebel Guardians who have their own fight against the Council.
Together they stand in a battle to find the truth, bring Caleb home, and secure Ava’s freedom—not to mention save her life.



Review by Camilla

Do you remember Ava, the college freshman who discovered that the world around her held more secrets than she thought? We met her in MORE, and now she's back in The Guardians, second book of TM Franklin’s trilogy.

In MORE Ava discovers what she'd already suspected as a child: she could make things happen. It was, however, a talent she didn’t understand nor could control; therefore she had decided not to think about it anymore.

At college somebody is stalking her, though, and her life becomes a nightmare until her Physics tutor, Caleb, befriends her and unveils the mystery. After that, Ava finds herself in a world of magic and of an ancient race bound to protect humans, but only after protecting their secrets. Ava belongs with them, as well as Caleb. There's a war raging among supernatural beings, and it's very difficult to distinguish friend from foe.

So, let’s see where we left her at the end of the first book.

Ava learns that the leaders of the race want to control her because they hope to unlock her latent powers and use her as a tool against their enemies, the Rogues. But Ava refuses to be controlled in such a way. In the last part of the first book, she's taken in front of the Council, and the Council can’t decide yet whether Ava can be considered a danger for them. A shaky truce ensues, and for a little while life returns to normal.

But - the first volume concluded - She knew the days ahead were anything but certain. Yet, in that moment, she couldn’t help feeling hopeful for the future. Somehow, knowing Caleb would be there made her feel even stronger than she had in the Council chamber.

When the ground leveled and she finally caught her breath, she glanced at him shyly. “I’m glad you’re going to be sticking around.”

“Me, too,” he replied, pulling her in for a quick kiss. “After all, you know you’re going to need me.”
“In case of Rogue attack?”

“Well, that, too . . . but no.”

“The Council?”

“No.”

“What then?” She stopped, turning to face him.

He grinned widely. “Someone’s got to help you pass physics.”


In the second volume, however, we see that the normality is short lived. Caleb, whom Ava loves, and who seems to love her in turn, starts behaving strangely and then disappears. What happened to him? Ava wants to find him before the Council does and, strangely, she finds help in the Race’s agent who had stalked her originally. Together they embark in another adventure where, again, it will extremely difficult to separate friend from foe. A mysterious and apparently frail young woman seems to hold the key both to Caleb strange behavior and to Ava’s powers, that need to be set free.

To say more would spoil the pleasure of reading. The pace is fast and so engrossing that kept me reading well into the night.

Thank you, Camilla!


T.M. Franklin started out her career writing non-fiction in a television newsroom. Graduating with a B.A. in Communications specializing in broadcast journalism and production, she worked for nine years as a major market television news producer, and garnered two regional Emmy Awards, before she resigned to be a full-time mom and part-time freelance writer. After writing and unsuccessfully querying a novel that she now admits, “is not that great,” she decided to follow the advice of one of the agents who turned her down—write some more and get better at it. Her first published novel, MORE, was born during National Novel Writing month, a challenge to write a novel in thirty days.

She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, Mike, is mom to two boys, Justin and Ryan, and has an enormous black dog named Rocky who’s always lying nearby while she’s writing. Whether he’s soothed by the clicking of the computer keys or just waiting for someone to rub his belly is up for debate.

In addition to MORE and The Guardians, Franklin penned the Amazon best-selling short story, Window, as well as another short story, A Piece of Cake, which appears in the Romantic Interludes anthology.

Connect with T.M. Franklin

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Buying links


  1. TWCS - http://ph.thewriterscoffeeshop.com/books/detail/105
  2. Barnes and Noble - http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-guardians-tm-franklin/1116891763?ean=9781612131719
  3. Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/Guardians-T-M-Franklin/dp/1612131719/ref=la_B009NV2HHG_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1381263081&sr=1-2

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