I hate reading series books because they leave you hanging, and you have to wait at least a year for the next installment in the series. By then, you’ve forgotten what happened in the first book. The whole thing is one big, vicious circle intended to frustrate readers and generate big bucks for publishing houses.

But when Jim highly recommended Karen Hancock’s 4-book Legends of the Guardian-King fantasy series, I took the bait (but only after visiting the library to make sure all four books were available for checkout).

My husband, who is a huge fantasy/sci-fi fan, read them first and gave them a hearty stamp of approval. Then I dove in, and spent several sleepless nights devouring the suspense-filled books. It was one of my first forays into Christian fantasy fiction (which some fantasy-fearful publishers disguise by calling it “speculative fiction,” “allegorical fiction,” or “inspirational fiction”).

Let’s just call it what it is: fantasy fiction with all the trimmings, written from a Christian theological worldview. The Christian “God” and “Jesus” are never mentioned, but one of the gods worshipped is modeled after the God Christians are familiar with.

I thoroughly enjoyed the series, especially since I was able to read the books one after another. The action-packed storyline contained way more violence than most Christian books (lots of sword fights and superheroish escape scenes—the staple of all fantasy fiction), and even a few juicy love scenes that caused my eyebrows to raise (whoa…this is Christian fiction?).  Karen Hancock does a superb job with character development and her characters are truly—er—inspirational. Maybe that’s why they call it inspirational fiction.

So if you’re looking for an author to binge on and want to give Christian fantasy a try, pick up the Legends of the Guardian-King series. (And no, Karen did not pay me to write this; I’ve never met her…although I would like to; she’s a terrific writer!)

Books in the series:

1. Light Of Eidon
2. Shadow Within
3. Shadow Over Kiriath (Legends of the Guardian-King)
4. Return of the Guardian-King (Legends of the Guardian-King)

More author binges:

• Learn to write fiction through author binging

Tags: author binging, authors, fantasy fiction, fiction, Karen Hancock, Legends of the Guardian-King, novelists, Writing