Hidden Gem: The Gatekeepers (Power of Five), by Anthony Horowitz.
Hello everyone! I’ve decided to write this up because I feel like this series is really under appreciated. I think that I’ll be doing this time from time, to help give series, television, novels, anime, manga or video games the love they should get!
The series this time is by Anthony Horowitz of the Alex Rider fame. The series is targeted to young teens, 14-16 years, but can be enjoyed by anyone! The Gatekeepers (Power of Five, as it is known outside Canada and the US), is about five young children, only 14 years old, who have been tasked to protect the world from the greatest evil, the Old Ones. There are five books in the series, titled Raven’s Gate, Evil Star, Nightrise, Necropolis, and Oblivion. Throughout the series, there is humour, drama, suspense, horror, mythology, and so much more! Horowitz is a very good writer, who likes to throw in puns here and there, so keep an eye out! The plot twists are quite good, and all the books are very well done. He also has a thing for graphic description, and some scenes can get quite nasty. Lastly, there is some pretty good social commentary in the series about the state of the planet today, and some characters make scathing remarks about how it came to be this way. Yikes.
The main characters, Matt, Pedro, Jamie, Scott, and Scarlett, each have unique powers and have different personalities to balance each other. You get to read their stories alone, side by side, or through the eyes of the other characters! I actually liked all five of them, which sometimes does not happen, and felt like every action each character chose made perfect sense within their character arc. Other characters is the series, other heroes or villains, are equally well written.
Pros: 4/5 of the main characters are POC. Pedro is Peruvian, Jamie and Scott are Indigenous twins from a real Indigenous group, and Scarlett is Indonesian. Matt is pretty likable too! Plot twists are well done. Narrative is good. Story flows well. Pedro is such a good boy, omg. Basically everything about it, hahaha.
Cons: Raven’s Gate is pretty short, so the last half feels a little rushed. Oblivion is super long in comparison, and probably could have had a tiny bit of fluff cut out. Horowitz cares not for some continuity, haha. Scott can be a tool sometimes.
So go do yourself a favour and check this series out! I would recommend it to anyone who likes urban/paranormal fantasy, and horror novels!
If you have any questions, shoot me a message~
