Defenders of The Scroll by Shiraz

Title: Defenders of The Scroll	Loved it	Graded
Author: Shiraz
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: iUniverse
Elements: -
Series: Stand alone

When Alex "the Axeman" Logan is pulled from his world to help young princess Dara save her kingdom from the Shadow Lord, he thinks there has been a mistake. He's a teen guitar player close to failing 11th grade, not some defender of the realm. All he has are some school books, his wits, and his love of fantasy movies.

Overnight his life is history. Alex must confront the Shadow Lord and his minions when he is thrust into a land that has changed from a magical paradise to a barren, hopeless, helpless realm invaded by a dark army.

But Alex is not alone. He has the help of Dara, a magic scroll, and a band of unlikely companions drawn from his own history books: a hardened Roman Legionnaire, a swift Japanese Samurai, a mighty African Warrior, a fiery Amazon Archer, and a spirited Shaolin Monk. Can Alex become more than he believes and lead his small band of Defenders to the Hall of Shadows, the birthplace of the Shadow Lord? The fate of the realm and everyone in it rests on him.

Defenders of The Scroll has everything you'd want in a YA fantasy/ adventure book. It has my favourite parts of a book in it: action and adventure and excitement, with great mythology, history, legend and lore.

Just like the full title says.

The cover is gorgeous, but very misleading. My first thought was that the storyline would be something akin to a video game's plotline, but I was wrong. We're first introduced to the king of Mythos and his daughter Dara. The king is the epitome of what all future kings should aspire to be like: powerful, kind and just, kind of like Albus Dumbledore but with a title.

So this king, he had a great idea: to banish all the evil to a sekrit place called Shadow Hall, hidden deep within a forest. One day, all hell breaks loose, and the Shadow Hall takes on a life of its own, and guess who the main course is?

Yep. The King of Mythos. Om nom nom.

Dara then finds out that he left her a sekrit scroll. As this is a sekrit scroll, it has a great magical power: the ability to summon people! Dara uses this scroll to summon the leader of the Axeman to help her, but instead accidentally calls up Alex, the leader of the band Axeman...and just a teenager.

While Alex is in many ways just your normal, everyday teenager, he proves himself to be a handy person to be around, using his skillz and wit to help protect Dara and the scroll.

This book has such a great plot and action, and amazingly likeable characters. I won't reveal any spoilers, because this book is just that awesome and I'd rather you find it out for yourself firsthand. I wish though, that there was a more complete ending, with a better resolution. What is this "So ends book one" ending?

Stoopid cliffhanger.

Now let me talk about the actual book itself, not the story. I've already said that the cover is gorgeous. When you open the book, it's just amazing. The design is such that it's like we're reading from an actual scroll, but without the iffy writing and language. Then you add in the illustrations, which were apparently drawn by Steve Criado. It's a great package, illustrations, design and of course, the story.