Exclusive Excerpt: Moonshadow’s Guardian by Dianna Gunn

Moonshadow’s Guardian | written by Dianna Gunn

Shortly after my last guest post with RoAnna I had a wonderful email from Dianna looking to collab with me!

Not only did she want to help share copies of her upcoming book (now out for the world to see and love) Moonshadow’s Guardian with my book club, she also asked if I’d be interested in guest posts too.

I have one of those here for you now where she has provided an exclusive excerpt so keep reading for a sneak peak.

Moonshadow’s Guardian by Dianna Gunn
Genre: Fantasy | Young Adult
Length: 259 pages
Published on 16th November 2018 by Dianna Gunn
Purchase: Amazon | KOBO

Synopsis:All Riana has ever wanted is freedom. Unfortunately, that’s the one thing her kind cannot have.

Bound by the curse in her demonic blood for millennia, Riana has tried several times to bend the rules and live out her life in the mortal realm. Now her consistent rule breaking has drawn the attention of Loki, God of Mischief, the main tormentor of Riana’s kind. But instead of punishing her, he offers her the escape she has always desired. All she has to do to is save the kingdom of Moonshadow from a mysterious magical plague.

Armed only with the inherent power of her own blood and Loki’s pet dragon, Riana is determined to fight for the right to create her own destiny.

However, when her mission forces her to destroy the last remnants of an ancient culture, Riana must ask – what is freedom really worth?

Moonshadow’s Guardian is a tale about the meaning of belonging, and the struggle to create a future not defined by your past.

INTRO FROM DIANNA GUNN

I have always been drawn to fantasy because of how it allows us to examine human nature through the lives of non-human characters, and in Moonshadow’s Guardian I do exactly that. Riana, the main character, is a cursed demigod, called a demon by the mortals of her world.She’s not the only magical being in Moonshadow’s Guardian, either. Let me introduce you to some of her magical friends:

EXCERPT

I blinked several times and lifted a hand to shield my face from the worst of it. As my eyes adjusted, and the cliffs came into view around me, I knew exactly where Loki had brought me.

Dragon’s Keep, mythical home of the gods.The keep sat in the bottom of an enormous round hole in the ground. The surrounding cliffs were pockmarked with caves, the dragons’ homes. Flying above us were massive, colourful shapes that could only be the dragons themselves. They shone brilliantly in the sun, so much so that it hurt to look at them, but I couldn’t bring myself to look away.

The sounds I heard earlier must have been the wings of dragons, carrying them into the sky. Now, listening carefully, I swore I knew what direction they were about to turn. Sure enough, a moment later they pivoted, flying back over the keep.

I took a deep breath—hot air, thick and stuffy with a hint of salt, but clean. “It’s just like the stories.”

“All stories are somewhere rooted in truth,” he said. He took my hand and pulled me toward the nearest cliff. I let him lead me, too fascinated by the dragons’ glittering scales to care where we were going.

I tripped on a rock and landed at the foot of the cliff, hissing at the stinging sensation in my knees. Loki chuckled as I got up.

“Is something the matter?” he asked. “You seem awfully distracted.”

I stared up into the sky. Two dragons spiralled around each other in what appeared to be a mating dance. They arced through the sky, into the sparse clouds and out again. One made a peculiar sound, halfway between a city cat’s purr and a mountain lion’s roar, and the other responded in kind.

They disappeared beyond the ring of cliffs, and I turned back to Loki.

“They’re magnificent,” I said.

“Wait ‘til you see them up close.”

“Wha—”

He grabbed me by the waist and tapped the ground with his foot. A moment later the ground fell away from my feet and we were floating. Floating became hurtling through the sky, wind pounding on my head and howling in my ears. A gust of wind launched us into a cave and we landed with so much force, it knocked the air out of my lungs.

Loki tried to hold me steady, but I shoved him away, almost falling over in the process.

“Thanks for the warning, asshole.” I muttered the last part, distracted by a silver gleam in the corner of my vision.

I spun to face a silver-furred dragon with bluish-green eyes. The creature was a full head taller than my entire body, and three times as large around. Two horns grew out from directly above those eyes, curving back toward its body, which trailed all the way to the back of the cavern, perhaps fifty feet away. A line of shiny blue spikes adorned its tail, culminating in a spike that must have been twice my height.

ABOUT DIANNA GUNN

Dianna Gunn has wanted to be a writer since she was eight years old. She wrote her first novel for Nanowrimo at eleven years old, but quickly discovered that writing books is not an easy way to make a living. So she decided to broaden her horizons, seeking another way – any way – to build a career in publishing. Her career began in earnest when she became a marketing intern at Musa Publishing in September 2011, and quickly became a staff writer, in charge of multiple imprint blogs.

In April 2017, Dianna’s first book, Keeper of the Dawn, was published through Book Smugglers Publishing. Her second novel, Moonshadow’s Guardian, releases on November 17th, 2018 and is currently available for pre-order on Amazon and Kobo.

When she’s not writing, you can find Dianna sharing writing and self-care tips on her YouTube channel or on Twitter @DiannaLGunn.

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