The Named
Front cover
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| Author | Marianne Curley |
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| Country | Australia |
| Language | English |
| Series | Guardians of Time Trilogy |
| Genre | Science-fiction, fantasy |
| Pages | 333 (US edition) |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 57063678 |
| Followed by | The Dark |
The Named is a fantasy novel written by Marianne Curley. It is the first book in the Guardians of Time Trilogy.
As with all of the Guardians of Time books, the prologue is written in third person while all the chapters are written in first person, switching points of view between the two narrators. The two narrators are Ethan and Isabel. They are together for most of the book.
The story is set in Angel Falls, which is located above the fictional ancient city of Veridian. Angel Falls is a small, fictional town set near the Australian bush. The description of the high schools implies that the town is smaller than average.
The story is set in the present or near-present time. Some of the story takes place in the past, in a variety of times and places. For example, one of the earlier missions that Isabel takes with Ethan is to Medieval England, as well as colonial America.
The Named opens with a prologue in which two children, Sera and Ethan, are running to witness a rare flower bloom. Ethan, at age four, recognizes his older sister's love for all things strange and otherworldly, and loves being included in her wonder. The moment of wonder is ruined by the appearance of a monster, Marduke, who murders 10-year-old Sera. Ethan's scream marks the transition from the prologue to the first chapter, where 16-year-old Ethan laments the recurring nightmare he has about the death of his sister twelve years before.
Ethan's life changed drastically after the death of his sister; his parents, Laura and Shaun, are mere shells of themselves. Laura suffers from severe depression while Shaun exists in a state of perpetual numbness. His only solace is his position in The Guardians of Time, a group of soldiers organized by the immortal Lorian, whose sole purpose is to defeat the goddess Lathenia and her Order of Chaos. The Order's soldiers exist to alter the course of history in order to benefit their goddess; the more chaos created in the past increases her strength in the present. Ethan and his friend and mentor Arkarian spent the majority of the twelve years since Sera's death in training and going on missions to the past to stop the Order from derailing history. Ethan and Arkarian are not only members of the Guard, but also Named by an ancient prophecy that predicts the final battle between the Guard and the Order.
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