Guardians of Dawn

(normal disclaimer: received free ARC, etc.)

We're still a year out from the anticipated release, so things may of course change between now and then so I don't want to go too deeply into this, but as of the current state:

The writing definitely gives both Sailor Moon and Cinder vibes without feeling like it was copying either story. We got magical girls, we got magical creatures, we got secret societies, we got several types of representation, we also got a group 7 boys who are definitely not inspired by any 7 real life boys and will hopefully hang around in the following books.

It's overall a promising start to the series. Here's to hoping that not too much changes between now and the final copy and that the cover art will do it justice when it is finally revealed.

I would give this more stars if I could!
There is magic and political intrigue, but also hope and smiles. This book has characters that you will fall in love with while you are also rooting for them to make things right. There is a pretty clear generational demarcation. The adults are mostly the bad guys for a variety of reasons, but the youth are the good guys. We don't spend a lot of time with the adults, so that gives us time to be with the youth in happy moments as well as action packed tense moments. The magic system is not well defined in this one, but that didn't bother me. The romance was light and mostly lacking in angst. I liked that as well. I can't find anything to complain about!
Waiting for book 2 will be so hard!