Fractured (Guards of the Shadowlands #2)
by Sarah Fine
Introduction
Fractured is a flawed sequel to Sanctum, but it’s worth getting through it to reach and enjoy Chaos — the third and best book of the series.
Genre
YA fantasy
Narration
First person past tense told by the main character Lela Santos
Characters
Lela Santos - seventeen, in foster care since she was four
Diane - Lela’s foster mom
Tegan - Friend of Nadia’s (from Sanctum) who befriends Lela in shared grief over Nadia’s death
Malachi - human Lieutenant of Lela’s field team
Henry - human guard from the Wasteland (purgatory reserved for murderers)
Jim - human guard from the Bright City (purgatory for addicts and thieves)
Raphael - angel, healer
Michael - angel, weapons master
Mazikin - a race of … demons might be the right word
Setting
Present day Rhode Island
Intended audience
Young adult
Plot
The Judge appoints Lela Captain of a field unit in charge of stopping Mazikin who have escaped from the Dark City. Raphael and Michael give her “the support she needs,” as they often claim, which is usually much less than seems prudent for the task.
About the Author
Sara Fine has written this and three other series. I haven’t read the others yet, but she is an author well worth following. Find out more on Goodreadshttps: https://www.goodreads.com/SarahFine and her website http://sarahfinebooks.com/.
My Opinion
Fractured lacks much of the emotional resonance of Sanctum. Moving the action to the land of the living feels like an excuse to put the story focus on high school, not monsters. As a result, relationship drama and high school shenanigans bring the story down to the level of a typical mediocre YA novel. Lela needed to maintain her cover (perhaps), but there was no good reason for Malachi and Jim to spend their days in school. The Mazikin were most vulnerable during the day, so shouldn’t they have been looking for the nest rather than playing at being students? All this gives the Mazikin time to set up a trap and — incidentally? — gives the writer an excuse to have the team go to prom!
Two characters are new in the sequel — Henry (a guard in Wasteland) and Jim (a guard in Bright City). Each has an interesting back story, but neither is fleshed out much as a character or well used in the plot. Jim starts as an insubordinate loose cannon, but just one pep talk from Lela is all it takes to turn him into a model guard. I did like Henry and would have loved to see more of him.
Lela is inexperienced as a guard, and her unit only consists of only herself and three others - two of whom have never seen any of the Mazikin enemy. With those valid obstacles in Lela’s way, the author still uses sheer stupidity on the part of Lela and her team as a plot device to create tension. Lela constantly whines about Malachi rather than doing her job. Her only plan is to “find the nest”, with little or no thought to what she’ll do when she finds it. The team is constantly splitting up (they need to stick together!) and making the same mistakes over and over, especially never having enough firepower when they do stumble on Mazikin.
The ending needed to happen — and it sets up book three very nicely — but it could have been done without making Lela out to be an idiot. She could have ended up there due to inexperience and factors beyond her control, not her own blundering about.
If you loved Sanctum, as I did, it’s worth getting through Fractured to reach Chaos, which is best of the three. I can only give this installment three stars out of five, but I heartily recommend the series as a whole.