Guardian Angel
(2024)(The first book in the Guardian Angel Trilogy series)
A novel by Cassiopeia Fletcher
Only a few weeks into her new “job” as Solace’s resident hero, seventeen-year-old Angela Farr—AKA Guardian Angel��is finding that the hero gig isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. It’s not enough that she’s dealing with drug dealers, gangsters, and a triad of Mafia families, she also has to get her homework done on time or she’s grounded. Again.
But everything changes when Angela’s childhood best friend turned archenemy, Trevor Pratt, returns to Solace with a vengeance. Rumor is there’s a new underworld gang in town, and Trevor—as ARSON—is more than willing to make them known.
Along with her friend Victoria and her genius, billionaire sponsor, Ben, Angela races to uncover ARSON’s newest game before the entire city goes up in flames.
While that may seem like a shameless plug, my honest purpose with publishing these books as-is is to show encouragement for new and emerging writers of all ages. Because while I am by no means an expert wordsmith, I will tell you that I have vastly improved over the years, and the difference in my skills is made nowhere more apparent than with these two very different drafts of the same novel.
By way of formal introduction, I would like to disclose a little history. I wrote the first draft of Guardian Angel in 2007 when I was nineteen-going-on-twenty in about six weeks. I didn’t have a reliable computer for most of that time (I was also working 7/12s as the wash girl for a construction crew, but that’s a story for another time), so I wrote almost the entire novel by hand on a yellow legal pad. My uncle (who was also my boss; nepotism for the win!) was my beta reader, and he was oddly taken with the story considering it was about a teenage girl who stumbles her way into heroics.
Because I didn’t know anything about the publishing industry, I actually tried to get the monstrosity that was my very-first-draft of my very-first-book-ever published traditionally, and if you’ve read it, I’m sure you can understand why that would have been a monumentally bad idea.
Which, naturally, begs the question: “If it was a bad idea to publish the book then, why are you publishing it now?”
For one thing, my ego as a writer is pretty solid now. Again, I’m not going to say that I’m the perfect epitome of authorship or even that I’m #authorgoals, but having done the traditional publishing thing with a much better series of books, I’m better prepared for whatever fallout may arise from publishing a bad book on purpose.
Also, as I said, I want to give hope to all the aspiring writers out there who think their writing has to be perfect the very first time.
Spoiler Alert: It doesn’t ;)
That being said, I am in no way trying to imply that this rewrite is perfect—it isn’t. For one thing, it has not been professionally edited, which is something I am a huge advocate of. But as the point of this publication is to share with you my progress (and should no way imply that I’m taking a short-cut due to my being unable to afford a good editor…^^;) I’m giving it to you in all of its raw glory....
For the rest of the Introduction, please join me in the novel :)
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
But everything changes when Angela’s childhood best friend turned archenemy, Trevor Pratt, returns to Solace with a vengeance. Rumor is there’s a new underworld gang in town, and Trevor—as ARSON—is more than willing to make them known.
Along with her friend Victoria and her genius, billionaire sponsor, Ben, Angela races to uncover ARSON’s newest game before the entire city goes up in flames.
***
Introduction
For those of you who haven’t read Guardian Angel: First Draft, you technically don’t have to, but I personally think you’re missing out.While that may seem like a shameless plug, my honest purpose with publishing these books as-is is to show encouragement for new and emerging writers of all ages. Because while I am by no means an expert wordsmith, I will tell you that I have vastly improved over the years, and the difference in my skills is made nowhere more apparent than with these two very different drafts of the same novel.
By way of formal introduction, I would like to disclose a little history. I wrote the first draft of Guardian Angel in 2007 when I was nineteen-going-on-twenty in about six weeks. I didn’t have a reliable computer for most of that time (I was also working 7/12s as the wash girl for a construction crew, but that’s a story for another time), so I wrote almost the entire novel by hand on a yellow legal pad. My uncle (who was also my boss; nepotism for the win!) was my beta reader, and he was oddly taken with the story considering it was about a teenage girl who stumbles her way into heroics.
Because I didn’t know anything about the publishing industry, I actually tried to get the monstrosity that was my very-first-draft of my very-first-book-ever published traditionally, and if you’ve read it, I’m sure you can understand why that would have been a monumentally bad idea.
Which, naturally, begs the question: “If it was a bad idea to publish the book then, why are you publishing it now?”
For one thing, my ego as a writer is pretty solid now. Again, I’m not going to say that I’m the perfect epitome of authorship or even that I’m #authorgoals, but having done the traditional publishing thing with a much better series of books, I’m better prepared for whatever fallout may arise from publishing a bad book on purpose.
Also, as I said, I want to give hope to all the aspiring writers out there who think their writing has to be perfect the very first time.
Spoiler Alert: It doesn’t ;)
That being said, I am in no way trying to imply that this rewrite is perfect—it isn’t. For one thing, it has not been professionally edited, which is something I am a huge advocate of. But as the point of this publication is to share with you my progress (and should no way imply that I’m taking a short-cut due to my being unable to afford a good editor…^^;) I’m giving it to you in all of its raw glory....
For the rest of the Introduction, please join me in the novel :)
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
Used availability for Cassiopeia Fletcher's Guardian Angel