Guardians

Tempest has been alone ever since a deadly virus wiped out her entire colony, the few remaining Earth survivors. She's been scrounging to survive, unaware just how alone she is until she encounters a Niahian, one of the nomadic Niah. Although he is not an Earthling, he becomes the closest thing to comfort and safety. Kiran is on Hymria, a sacred quest. To be worthy of his goddess and the task, he must remain pure in mind, body, spirit. This becomes difficult when he meets Tempest. She is a distraction, but not an unwelcome one. As the prophecy's Guardian, Kiran must face challenges including the approach of the alignment and finding his way to the final destination. When Tempest decides to follow him, his troubles are only just beginning. Although I'm a dedicated reader of Ms. O'Connor's work, for me this wasn't one of her strongest. That doesn't mean I didn't like Guardian of the Storm, I did. It just seemed a bit harder for me to focus on the characters. I got distracted by the mystery behind the prophecy, which is an important portion of the plot. This didn't make Kiran and Tempest disagreeable to me in any way though. I appreciated being sidelined by the plot when I reached mid-point; it's one of the enjoyable aspects of reading this author's work. There`s enough substance here to make a darn good story overall, and by the time I reached the last chapter, I was content with the result. Patrice F. Reviewed for Joyfully Reviewed

In the first story, Guardian of the Storm, colonist from an Earth vessel had made a contolled crash landing on this desert world, Tempest was born on this new world but a plague struck the colony killing many, so Temptest fled into the desert with her brother and a friend, but sadly they died from the plague. She was alone for two years at a small watering hole, taking shelter in a nearby cave when she met Kiran who was on a special quest as foretold in his peoples ancient scrolls, Kiran's people had been on this planet long before the Earth people had arrived. Together they go on an important quest that will transform this world back to the lush planet it once was. This was a good story up until the end, which ended too suddenly. Instead of letting the events of the story unfold until the end, which should have taken a few more chapters, the author really rushed the ending into just a few pages, but thats a short story for you. In the second story, Twilight's End, the scientist of Earth knew their world was doomed, Dionne was bio-engineered and trained to help restock the Earth and give lost knowlege to any surviors, but due to a miscalculation she was left in bio-stasis until, Khan, Chieftain of the Kota people, awakens her after a thousand years. This story was good science fiction and romance, very enjoyable, also longer than the first story. The ending was not as sudden, but the author could have made a longer book out of this story. Dionne and her trained cats are on the book cover.