A Dark Guardian

Shields, Book 1

By: Donna Grant

Narrated by: Antony Ferguson

Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins

Publisher's summary

Hugh and his men are faced with fighting creatures only thought to live in legend but which have been brought to Earth by evil bent on annihilating all the realms. That is Hugh's life - and he loves it. At least he did until he found himself staring into the angelic, innocent face of Lady Mina of Stone Crest.

In all the time he has led the Shields Hugh has trusted his instinct to keep his men alive, yet now he doesn't know what to believe. Everything points to Mina as the evil summoning the creatures, but she proclaims her innocence. He should be able to see through her lies, if she is indeed lying, but his attraction to her blinds him to even that. The last time he found myself so drawn to a woman, it nearly cost him the lives of his men. Hugh cannot allow that to happen again. He won't allow that to happen again. Yet every time she looks at him, begging him with those blue-green eyes to believe her, he finds himself sinking further under her spell. Her mouth is a temptation mortal men will never know, and her love will either bring him the peace he thought he'd never find - or the death he's managed, thus far, to avoid.

©2012 Donna Grant (P)2013 Tantor

PARANORMAL INTRIGUE,DUTY & LOVE MAKE A GREAT COMBO

Six handsome hunky time travelling Warriors working for the Fae battling evil and saving realms then moving on to the next evil threat. This was a delicious start to DG's new paranormal series that had fast paced action, mystery, magic, a murdering demon, romance, sex, love, evil siblings, a few twists - and all this was intertwined with the 'oh, who is it?' basis of the storyline that keeps you guessing..... and your earphones glued in.

Great characters, Hugh the leader of The Shields is instantly attracted to Mina however they were there to do a job and so he tried to fight his attraction to the lovely Mina but, of course, he failed. However, her family had really done a great job in tormenting her through the years so her self-worth was at zero but despite that she started to believe him. Hugh had been deceived before by love and just couldn't trust her and this played a big part in the story which, unfortunately, became repetitive and a bit annoying coupled with Mina's constant low self esteem issues sadly lost this otherwise exciting listen a point from me.

Worth a credit? Now we've met the characters, learned some of the who, what's and whys of The Shields the foundation has been set and I can't wait to discover what imaginative supernatural story-lines DG will conjure up for us in her forthcoming books as she adds and subtracts the Warriors in the series. Sorry, back to the worth a credit question - well that should of been easily answered by my review - an absolute YES.

awesome

Loved it !! this story. the narrator is so fantastic it's like your really there!! good overall

Dull, and more dull

What can I say about this book, it was filled with misunderstanding after misunderstood. Get to the point already. The heroine was stupid and silly, I couldn't finish this book.

Author does a great job of confusing the reader

I have enjoyed this book since I first read it in 2013 but back then I wasn't reviewing books. I recently joined Audible Escape since I LOVE to listen to books while I work in my sewing studio. What a delight it was to find this book.

What a delight it was to find this book. Author Donna Grant does a great job of confusing the reader so they can't assume they know the answer. Her characters are multifaceted and intriguing. The first chapter sets up the story as a mystery and clearly shows the reader the personality of the main characters so you can quickly access who will be your favorite.

Within a few minutes of the story I knew Lady Mina was my favorite as well as the hunky Grant.

Narrator Antony Ferguson is by far one of my favorite narrators as he has the ability to seamlessly move smoothly between characters, accents and genders. I give him 5 STARS.

Weak

Have you listened to any of Antony Ferguson’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Antony Ferguson is an excellent narrator.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

No.

Any additional comments?

This story is weak compared with her Immortal Guardians series. I could not get invested in the characters. It was more like a fairy tale "dragon slayer saves the princess" type of story.
I will give the next book in the series a chance since I loved the Immortal Guardians.
If Immortal Guardians was a dog I would say it was a German Shepard and Shields is a frou-frou lap dog.

Not Bad

This is the start of a series. I already have book 2 so I will at least go that far. It is not a bad book but the narrator nearly ruined it for me. He is fine in general but it is too monotone or something. He is awful when it comes to the romance or expressing emotion --just that same even monotone. I think a female would have been better. As I said , I will do book 2 but I don't plan to go further if he narrates them all. There was not a lot of explanation about the creatures, the shields, and how and why they time travel. Hopefully that will become clearer in the series or it will be a big disappointment.

Loved this story.

Loved the story and loved the narrator. just the right amount of suspense, love, sex and action . I am moving on to book two

I can't wait to begin the next book.

Would you listen to A Dark Guardian again? Why?

Absolutely. It was exciting and romantic with all the action of a paranormal adventure,

What did you like best about this story?

It pulled me into the story right away and kept me wondering who was the villain.

Which character – as performed by Antony Ferguson – was your favorite?

Lady Mina

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

When they were in the barn together, his fierceness to have her belong to him was amazing.

Any additional comments?

I love Donna Grants writing and am always looking for her next adventure to begin. Her highlander novels are incredible.

Exceptional

i did enjoy this book it is kinda long winded though and does go on and on, narration though was extremely good and is what actually kept me interested had i had the actual book i probably would have put it down.

A good story, but it has its flaws.

This is a mix of an old fashion historical romance and a fantasy all rolled up together, this includes the character development. Overall I enjoyed this story and I will continue with the next book to see what happens next. There were admittedly some parts to the book that did not jive with how people really react and while I was in disbelief I still enjoyed the storyline. I think the most annoying part was how long Hugh actually thought that Mina was part of the conspiracy. To me it was easy to figure out who the bad guys really were, but mostly I was reading this for the action and the romance so it works for me. Narrator was not too bad he had a nice voice, although he did sometimes use the wrong voice for the character he was portraying.