#REVIEW - Stars of Fortune, Book One of The Guardians Trilogy by Nora Roberts

Description:

BOOK ONE OF THE GUARDIANS TRILOGY

To celebrate the rise of their new queen, three goddesses of the moon created three stars, one of fire, one of ice, one of water. But then they fell from the sky, putting the fate of all worlds in danger. And now three women and three men join forces to pick up the pieces…

Sasha Riggs is a reclusive artist, haunted by dreams and nightmares that she turns into extraordinary paintings. Her visions lead her to the Greek island of Corfu, where five others have been lured to seek the fire star. Sasha recognizes them, because she has drawn them: a magician, an archaeologist, a wanderer, a fighter, a loner. All on a quest. All with secrets.

Sasha is the one who holds them together—the seer. And in the magician, Bran Killian, she sees a man of immense power and compassion. As Sasha struggles with her rare ability, Bran is there to support her, challenge her, and believe in her.

But Sasha and Bran are just two of the six. And they all must all work together as a team to find the fire star in a cradle of land beneath the sea. Over their every attempt at trust, unity, and love, a dark threat looms. And it seeks to corrupt everything that stands in its way of possessing the stars…

My Take:

4 STARS!

I was lucky enough to get the print paperback version of this book for review from the publisher, Berkley, and WOW! This is one gorgeous book! I HAVE to tell you about it!

The front cover has a gold foil finish across a Greek style city that overlooks the

ocean. As this city somewhat fades down to the bottom of the book, it starts to look like golden nuggets and there is the title in a read foil at the bottom. At the top is the author’s name. The side spine as you see it sitting on your bookshelf shines as well making you want to pick this book up! The back has a photo of the author, but the best part are the inside covers of the front and back. They have folds that open just like a hardcover! The front inside flap tells us about this story and the back tells us a little about the author’s books, for instance she has written over 200 books! I know she has written a lot, but I didn’t know it was that many! (You will also find ALL her books she has written inside the front of the book on a few pages, too.) It also tells us she has the pen name of J D Robb as writing the Death series. You are going to LOVE just looking at this book! One last thing is the underwater painting of the sea inside of those covers and what looks like the stars at the top, which is what the characters are on the hunt for later on in the story! It’s beautiful! Oh! Top that off with Deckle edge pages, and the book is pure beauty!

In the upper left side on the cover, (the above photo shows the right side, but I am the one with the finished book) there is a stamp that says NR, inside of a circle, and just below that is says: Never Before Relore Published just in case you’re wondering.

Now let’s talk about reading this book! You are going to love that, too! Her writing has such ease to it, and you surely get lost in it, and the next thing you know the time has flown by and you have returned from a fictional fantasy/mythology you don’t want to stop reading! While I know nothing about mythology (even back in High School they never taught us about it which they normally do) I still enjoyed reading this book. I learned quite a bit about mythology, too, as this entire story revolves around it. (Okay, confession time! I am embarrassed by this because this author is SO famous and everyone seems to have read books by her, but this is 'my' first time reading one of her books! I know! Where have I been? LOL! However, now I CAN say I have read one of her books and plan on reading a LOT more by her!)

This entire book is based upon the Prologue of this book which tells us a tale about three goddesses who are sisters wished gifts fit for a Queen. They each decided the gift would be a star, an immortal gift they called it, like they are. Of course you can’t have good without having evil, so a fourth sister came slithering about like a snake. She did something and told her sisters the stars would burn out, they were not going to last. The other three sisters blew her off telling her to disappear and go back to her shadows. She doesn’t and drama continues for these sisters.

Later comes a living mortal, Sasha Riggs, who is living in North Carolina, plagued by dreams that affect her painting, her artwork and what she has painted, and no matter what she tries, she feels she needs to leave and take a vacation to get away for a while. This takes her to Greece, to one of the places she has automatically gone to because it was from her paintings she made. She meets a total of five friends, one of them a man, of course, his name is Bran. All of the friends she makes she knows about because she has painted them. She is also learning by these things that are happening that something is definitely going on with her, too. Meeting Bran helps to provide Sasha with some romance which we all love in a book! The romance doesn’t just kindle, it burns in a good way! Again, you can’t have the good without the evil, so they have to fight that, too. Wait until you learn about the compass!

I think anyone would enjoy this book, even those who are not all that familiar with fantasy/mythology, or even this author. This is Book One in this The Guardians series, and will be a Trilogy that I plan on continuing to read because I liked it so much. As I said above, you all know I love to read as it's my form of escapism from life! It's an excellent book to ease into the genre and it’s a great escape, which I love and look for in all the books I read!