The LUV'NV: Blog Tour {Review & Giveaway}—Guardian Angel series by Skyla Madi

Saturday, June 8, 2013

Blog Tour {Review & Giveaway}—Guardian Angel series by Skyla Madi

Welcome to the Guardian Angel series blog tour, organized by YA Bound.
I got the pleasure of reading this Paranormal Romance series. Click on the individual bookcovers to get the respective book's info, and continue reading for the series review without spoilers. Be sure to enter the giveaway for the entire Guardian Angel series in eBook format!

Guardian Angel series

by Skyla Madi

Genre: Young Adult Paranormal Romance

Your Guardian Angel

Book #1 of Guardian Angel series

Publication: December 2012 by Limitless Publishing

Book Depository Amazon B & N Goodreads

For Ruby Moore life is far more complicated than that of your average teen, for she is in no way average. Ruby is a vampire and her life as a vampire is far from traditional.

It has been one year since her normal life was brutally taken from her. Still adjusting to the shock of the change from mortal to immortal, her world is rocked again and she is taken under the wings of a guardian angel back to Sage Sanctum- a school beyond reach from the vampires that are determined to destroy her.

There, she is freed from her vampiric chains and her normal needs and urges return. However a new urge arises… Lust. A forbidden lust toward her savior, her guardian angel.

Attempting to control these desires is difficult, very difficult and when things couldn't possibly get any worse, her situation becomes life or death as someone, somewhere in the school is aiding those who want her dead.

Sun Kissed

Book #2 of Guardian Angel series

Publication: January 1st 2013 by Limitless Publishing

Goodreads Amazon

What if everything you knew, everything you believed was a lie?

For Ruby Moore life doesn’t slow down. It’s just one roller coaster ride after another and when the higher power comes to visit, Ruby’s world is shaken to its foundations. He offers her a job and if she wants to protect those she loves, she has no choice but to accept it.

Face to face once again with love, loss and death, Ruby is being forced to sacrifice her own freedom in order to protect her world from the clutches of the evil vampires and if she fails, her loved ones will have to pay the price.

Salvation

Book #3 of Guardian Angel series

Publication: April 9th 2013 by Limitless Publishing

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In the aftermath of a battle that forced Ruby to flee the safety of the guardian angels, she settles into a small town, hoping to blend in and forget about the ones she loved. It isn’t until Hunter stumbles across her working in a bar and a well-timed email from Ivan Aleksandrov that she realised she could go back to Sage Sanctum—for a few days, at least.

Out for revenge, Lucian will stop at nothing until he has Ruby for himself, but he isn’t the only one that needs her. The council, a group of gods/goddesses have a mysterious hand in Ruby’s return to Sage Sanctum and Mr Aleksandrov is eager to find out what it is.

Destroying Lucian is the least of her worries when Ruby comes face to face with Eli De Luca, the love of her life. It seems her departure has affected him more than she thought it would, but his frustration with her isn’t strong enough to hide the electricity that crackles relentlessly between them.

Determined to end her very real nightmare once and for all, Ruby fights the biggest battle of her life, one that affects not only her, but everyone involved.

I've read vampire books. I've read angel books as well as a few goddess ones, but the Guardian Angel series has a pretty unique premise by combining all three: gods and goddesses guarded by angels against vampires who thirst for their pure blood. Add an academy where gods and goddesses learn their special affinities while the angels train to kick butt, on top of a forbidden romance, and the series faintly echoes the Vampire Academy in that respect.

Ruby Moore is half-goddess, but on the night her mother was killed by her vampire-turned step-father, she becomes the first of divine blood to survive the kiss of death and become a vampire herself. Hiding her lust for blood, she attends a human school with her cousin until the vampire who killed her mother wants to finish the job he started. When the guardian angels come to Ruby's rescue, they discover her secret and aim to reverse the vampirism. But Ruby's blood holds more secrets that she never knew, and as the godhead wants to utilize her powers, she learns more about herself, her parents, and love.

I really liked Ruby in the beginning. She was strong despite her vulnerabilities and loss. I have to say that I found her hard to like at times because of her decision-making, but she was simply loyal to a fault, which isn't necessarily bad. She did make me laugh because of her wit, and I did like her overall attitude. She had her faults and contradictions, but she always picked herself back up and pushed forward.

Eli, her guardian angel whom she falls in love with, is her true counterpart. Patient, attentive, and dead serious, he is Ruby's opposite—in a good way. They balance each other out and had a sweet romance, forbidden because he's an angel and mentor where she's a goddess and student. He fell a little flat at times, but I still liked him. His unyielding trust and faith in Ruby was lovely.

The god Hunter, on the other hand, I absolutely loved. He's the bad boy who falls hard and becomes the lovable bad guy. There's nothing more that I love than a villain, even a small one, who makes me hope. His personality simply came off stronger than Eli's, and I always adore the underdog. ;)

I would've appreciated more world-building—the history and dynamics between the races, info on abilities, overall description. I felt the story was missing scope, a range in magnitude that I've come to expect with novels revolving around gods, goddesses, and/or angels in which the whole world is affected and might end. But that's a preference. I think I just might've had high expectations before reading; the series is more Paranormal Romance with a lot high school drama and one major outer conflict than the Urban Fantasy/Fantasy I was anticipating and looking forward to. If I read this story a few years ago, when I hadn't exhausted the the PNR shelf, I probably would've been flailing around over my love for it.

Still, the Guardian Angel series is enjoyable and worth the read if you like YA Paranormal Romance. I'd suggest it to young adults and looking for heavy romance, angst, and a good love triangle in a fantasy setting.

eBooks provided by the author via blog tour.
Thank you!

Visit the Guardian Angel Tour Schedule for character profiles, guest posts, and more reviews.

Skyla Madi

Her Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

Skyla Madi was born in the small town of Port Maquarie, New South Wales in 1993. She spent half her life growing up in Wauchope, a thriving rural town at the heart of the Hastings River Valley before making the leap to the busy city of Brisbane.

Whenever this young Australian writer isn't changing diapers, watching cartoons, cooking for her husband or doing other motherly-wife things she is actively working on her writing and improving her writing skills.

Skyla loves to read just as much as she loves to write and since discovering that YA/NA/paranormal romance/urban fantasy/ are her favourite genres, she has embarked on her own writing journey and is currently contracted with Limitless Publishing.