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Title: Monster Hunter Guardian
Series: MHI #7
Author: Larry Correia & Sarah Hoyt
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Pages: 436
Words: 118K
Series: MHI #7
Author: Larry Correia & Sarah Hoyt
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Pages: 436
Words: 118K
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Synopsis:
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While Owen and the
other Monster Hunters are off in Russia fighting the big baddies,
Julie (Own's wife and former Shackleford) is in charge of running the
skeleton crew of MHI. She's also taking care of her dying grandfather
and her newborn son.
She has a
recruitment possibility but it goes sideways and turns out to be just
a lure so a malevolent being can kill her grandfather and kidnap her
son. Brother Death then contacts Julie and says he'll trade her son
for a powerful artifact he knows Julie is guarding, even though she
told MHI it was destroyed. She reluctantly agrees but creates a
backup plan to recover the item and her son if Brother Death double
crosses her. He does. Julie ends up in Germany alone and with almost
no weapons. She tracks down the group of cultists who took possession
of the artifact only to find out that the kidnapping of her son and
artifact were unrelated. In the process of recovering the artifact,
Julie breaks about a bajillion german laws and the german version of
MCB makes MCB look like a kind and benevolent grandfather.
Julie goes on the
run. With the help of Management (the last dragon in existence), she
finds a man who is a European Monster Advocate. She needs his help to
track down a monster known for kidnapping children, who will
hopefully then lead her to Brother Death. Turns out the Monster
Advocate was killed years ago and his body taken over by the child
killer monster. Julie kills it and lets Management into its computer
system. This gets her an invite to an auction that Mr Death is
holding, with her son being the main item on the agenda.
Julie heads out
with a lawyer from Management. At the auction she becomes aware that
her mother is there and wants Julie's son to raise as her own
(Julie's mom is a nutjob of a super vampire). The auction goes bad
and Julie shoots her way out. She rescues her son only to see him
taken from her by her mother. With the lawyer's help she escapes
Brother Death.
Julie tracks her
mom down and calls all the dregs of MHI to assault the mansion, along
with the local branch of government monster hunters. They succeed
against all odds and Julie has her son back. She also finds out that
MHI is back from the Island.
With help from Owen
and some of the other MHI Crew Julie finds out Brother Death's real
name and uses that to kill him. During all of this her Guardian marks
have grown and she finds out that as the marks grow, her humanity
will shrink until she ceases to be human. At which point she will
become a monster herself.
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My
Thoughts:
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Another grand entry in the Monster Hunters International series. Now
don't get me wrong, I don't think this is the best written series
ever. I gave the first book 3 stars when I read it back in whenever
and wasn't sure I was going to continue the series, but here I am, 7
books later and still enjoying them. For me, these are delightful
books. Evil, in the form of monsters and other supernatural baddies,
being taken care of from the business end of a gun. I find that
extremely appealing.
I'm going to talk about the negative first though. This is a book
about a woman who has lost her son to an unspeakable evil. There are
emotions flying around like confetti at Mardi Gras. My issue isn't
that it rang false or anything, but that it was there at all. I don't
read books to souse myself in feminine emotion. Julie Pitt is no
shrinking lilly nor does she allow her feelings to overcome her
ability to act, but the mere fact that they are part of the story
wasn't at all enjoyable for me. This is definitely a personal dislike
and not some “I'm so Unbiased, look at me judging this book” kind
of thing. Other readers might absolutely love Julie and her contrast
to Owen Pitt, the man who saved the world. But for me, it was a
negative. Now with that out of the way.
I had a BLAST with this book. I feel like my Quote post really summed
up this book. Action, snark, non-explicit gun porn (I was surprised
at how much I understood and found interesting when Julie was talking
about various guns) and humor. The orcs are babysitters for baby Ray
and the few paragraphs about them had me in stitches. They pretend to
be wargs and let Ray ride them while having mock battles. It had me
almost laughing out loud.
The action is just unrelenting. Julie has very few fall back options
and almost no time and we as the readers jump from one scene to the
next as she battles her way through various groups in various
countries. From the death cultists who steal the artifact, to the
baby stealing monster to the fight at the auction to the fight with
Julie's Vampire Mom to the final scene with Brother Death, it was all
drizzled with awesome sauce.
This book didn't feel like it was written by 2 authors. Whether Sarah
Hoyt does another collaboration with Correia or not, I really enjoyed
this work by the 2 of them. It does make me want to check out her
other stuff to see if it would work for me.
★★★★☆
