She has only just arrived when she encounters Bran Killian, an Irish magician with a warm charisma and secrets dancing in his eyes. Sasha has never met Bran before, but she knows him only too well - because this is the man from her dreams. The man she has painted over and over again. The man she seems fated to be with...if she can find the courage to accept who she really is.
Sasha soon discovers that four other strangers have been lured to the island. Like Bran, they are all desperately searching for a mysterious jewel known as the fire star - before it falls into the wrong hands. Together, they might just succeed. But first they must learn to trust one another, and reveal their deepest secrets.
On the sun-drenched island of Corfu, love and magic are sparked into life. And for Sasha, nothing will ever be the same again.
Comment: This is the romantic trilogy that Nora Roberts has published between 2015 and 2016 and that I have waited to read in following months. Since Nora Roberts is still one of my favorite authors, I need to plan ahead reading her books otherwise they would be all read and the wait would be harsher (thankfully, she's prolific)!
In this first installment of the Guardians trilogy, we meet artist Sasha Riggs, a young woman who has started to have weird dreams about special stars, about a team of people, about tasks they are supposed to perform and she feels like drawing the things she sees. After another compelling dream she makes the decision of traveling to the island of Corfu, something she can't really explain but she does it anyway.
Soon after arriving, she meets two of the people she dreamed about and they decide to explore the reason they are together. It's not that long after the rest of the group shows up, with a strong need to be in the same place, so they find the stars, which are very special and precious gems, and avoid their enemy to get it. Through this adventure, their bond strengthens and each element starts to reveal the secrets they have and why they are part of the group...
Any fan or reader of this author would very easily recognize the formula behind the story and the whole trilogy. As all her trilogies so far have shown, there are always six people who form a group but of the six, they all form couples too. There is always a task or a situation or something that makes them need to be together (like the previous romantic trilogies with some PNR elements) or simply a state of things that unites the group (like the series where the family members unite to battle a bad person or to make a business succeed).
No matter the style of the trilogy or quartet, the ideas are often the same.
I must say, though, that in the past it felt like the characters would be so much more vibrant and "alive". It might be just my impression but the recent books (for around years back) seem to be too polished, the characters filing their roles too perfectly. Things feel a little too perfect, too mechanic in how they are happening. I don't think this is just the consequence of having a formula or following an idea repeated series after series. Perhaps I'm being unfair but it feels like the words are there but the scenes are just something to give us an idea now and not as emotional as I remember from other books.
In this book this happens because the characters meet each other so quickly - and even knowing this is how it had to be to make things move on - which felt too quick for strangers to connect so easily. Even the romance portrayed felt too quick. Not as much insta-love because of the dreams and so on but I missed more scenes with them being romantic together or doing more mundane things. I mean, this happens, we see them quite often making meals and such but the atmosphere is much more dedicated to the action and the group's skills than a realistic time consuming relationships that would develop between each couple and the whole group.
Nevertheless, my personal preferences or impressions aside, this was an easy story to follow, it's pretty basic in terms of main structure and development but it was nice enough to uncover the character's secrets as they came. Some were a bit too silly but nothing a reader wouldn't expect from the author.
I liked Sasha, she has some characteristics I liked, how introverted she behaved at first and how she feels vulnerable. Her romance with Bran is too quick but acceptable because of the whole "team" thing.
Bran is quite special but to be honest I don't think we get to know him that well. We just know and accept he is a good guy. Perhaps this isn't it but the characters are too superficially developed.
As a whole, this book fits the bill for the style and genre but I'm used to it, I can appreciate it even when some details make me think it could be so much better. It's complicated to describe it... I think I'm grading it more because this is something I like, as I've enjoyed the majority of the work by this author, but as a single title this probably isn't her best.
I'm still reading the rest because not reading Nora Roberts' books wouldn't just be possible, even accepting the flaws and/or problems in them.
Grade: 7/10
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