The Giants’ Giant (Book 1 in the Giants of StoneHold Series)

For her failure to conform to the rules of the StoneHold Giant community, Brianna Mineshaker finds herself within the walls of Harmony School. The school trains the hardheaded adolescents from three races: humans, dryads, and giants. Once a victim of bullying, she is determined to find her place in this new community. The truth couldn’t be further away. She soon finds herself within a web of bullies, gets accused of murder, and faces the harshest conditions in the Wastelands in her attempt to find justice and freedom. Her newly found friends, Stannis, a human, and Rayel, a dryad, are her only allies. Can the trio fight against all odds to attain justice and true freedom?

When a reader meets some enticingly spicy characters like Brianna who would rather ask, “What’s with all the jumping when you fight?”, instead of “Are you OK?” after an encounter in combat, then he/she knows what a great YA fantasy looks like. Yes, “The Giants’ Giant” is a well-orchestrated thoroughly entertaining novel. The author delivers the themes of finding self-worth and true freedom in a way that can banish all shreds of self-sabotage and low self-esteem from any young reader’s mind. The only thing that can be a tad off-putting is the repetitive nature of “…my grandfather told me…” bits that are all over Stannis’ wise quotes. Other than that, every page of this book is laden with humor, suspense, conspiracies, lies, and secrets with clearly drawn scenes and worlds for the reader to devour.

JM Lareen