B|t|B: Book Review – Moonshadow’s Guardian by Dianna Gunn

Title: Moonshadow’s Guardian
Author: Dianna Gunn
Published: Nov 18th 2018
Pages: 262

Hello my fellow Bookworms and page turners.

Today we are having a look at Dianna Gunns ‘Moonshadow’s Guardian’. The story is about a girl named Riana, and her quest to be free. For you see, Riana is bound by her demonic blood, therefore destined to live out the same pain and torture over and over again, with no chance of the sweet relief of death. She has already tried several times to bend the rules in order for her to live her life in the mortal realm, but to no avail. Now her efforts have become noticed by Loki, the God of michief himself, who, unfortunatley for Riana is the main tormenter of her kind.

However, upon discovering her rule breaking, Loki, rather than punishing her efforts, offers her the escape that she has always wanted. In return all she has to do is a small trifle of a task, you know the usual, go to another kingdom and save them all from a mysterious magical plague, no biggie!?

Now I could go on about the plot, but if you want to know more you will have to pick up a copy of the book yourself! But, what I can tell you is that I really like how Gunn built up our main protagonist, throughout the storyline, and that despite her demonic nature Riana was still able to feel, loneliness, pain, guilt, and love, which from the lore of this world is not particularly common in demon kind. This means that our protagonists situation and feeling are relateable dispite her race. The emotions also kept the character well grounded, and allowed her to make informaed decisions throughout the plot rather than going off kilter down a rabbit hole or a spiral of demonic hatred. But, without a doubt no matter how well written Riana is, Rolf is my favourite. Rolf is an absolutely brilliant character, but we don’t see him anywhere near enough in this installment. He is such a pure, beautiful, innocent soul, which in fantasy literature is incredibly unusual for a dragon (at least as far as I’m aware).

Gunn demonstrates a very strong ability in world building, and creates a fantastic reader reaction without the need for any in-your- face exposition. From The ruins of Riminaria, and the seamless intergration of Atlantean & Norse legend, along with numerous creatures such as dragons, and vampires create an incredibly rich and intersting world, which despite its eclecticness achieves a perfect balance.

The only downside I can say about this one is that, as this is clearly the first book of a series, it sets up a number of plot points, which are left open ended in order to continue at a later date. It felt like some of the bigger issues were solved too easily and quickly, which seemed to cause a slight pacing issue throughout the novel.

Overall I enjoyed the story, and I look forawrd to see how this continues on in Dunn’s second installment, which is due for release later this year!

Until next time, read more books!