Guardian of the Dead actually reminded me a lot of Pamela Dean's Tam Lin, except the pacing's completely in reverse. At the beginning of Karen Healey's Guardian of the Dead, protagonist Ellie's biggest problems are these:ġ.) She has self-esteem issues and no friends at boarding school except her BFF KevinĢ.) who has just shared with her an Awkward Secret (which I'm not going to spoil for you guys, even though it's revealed a few pages in, because I thought it was pretty awesome and is something I haven't really seen treated this explicitly in a book before)ģ.) and she's sort of promised to help Kevin's cool and gorgeous best friend Iris out by using her badass martial arts training to choreograph the fight scenes of a production of Midsummer Night's Dream, even though Iris makes her uncomfortable by dint of being Almost Too Awesome And Friendly To Be Real (spoiler: I love Iris)Ĥ.) and she has a big crush on Mysterious Loner Mark Nolan, who aside from his brooding and difficulty with personal hygiene also has, it turns out, a really bad habit of casually mindwiping peopleĪ hundred and fifty page or so into Guardian of the Dead, Ellie's biggest problems are these:ġ.) She also is capable of casually mindwiping people!Ģ.) A figure out of Maori mythology wants to make off with Kevin!ģ.) No wait scratch that, sorry Kevin but that isn't even the big problem, the big problem is that figures out of Maori mythology are trying to sink New Zealand

Guardian of the dead by karen healey