Waking Lazarus (A Guardian Novel #2)

Jake Harris' life hasn't turned out the way he planned. Battling his addictions, and the shattered pieces of his family, he is hired to ghostwrite a memoir. From the 1920's story of a controversial evangelist, to the present day mystery of a former District Attorney, everything changes when his search for the truth leads to an atrocity hidden from history. With a past he can't remember, he begins to discover that he is not the person he believed himself to be. Rather, he is a threat to a secret society that has remained in the shadows for nearly a century. Jake is drawn deep inside a world he never knew existed that brings him closer to his own extraordinary destiny.

*May Contain Spoilers*

DJ Williams defies expectations with his novel, Waking Lazarus, the second in the Guardian series. With everything already lost, there isn't much choice but for Jake Harris to help with an investigation that cleared him as a suspect. But there's more to the FBI partnership than there seems. 

Jake seems like an average man going through a rocky part of life. He's getting divorced, though he doesn't want to, and lacking both a job and a home. When he's hired to ghostwrite a memoir, it seems his prayers have been answered. He has hope, he has drive, but he also has a drinking problem. Jake Harris is about as real as a character can get, before he is dragged into a world of secret societies and trained assassins. After Doc Warren hires Jake as a writer, he is killed and Jake is pulled into a world that he was once a part of. But those memories have been erased. Jake isn't a perfect person, he has more then his fair share of flaws, but he has good intentions and even better motivations: keeping his wife and daughter safe. I think readers will connect with him through that motivation more than anything else. 

Though not the main character, I really enjoyed Kate's role in the story. She is brought back by the President to protect Jake, though she isn't given a reason as to why. As she becomes entangled in this terrorizing plot, Kate's certainty that she's working for the good guys becomes unclear. I really enjoyed that Williams wrote a female FBI agent to protect Jake, it added another level to the relationships, espionage, and what overall success of the operation would mean exactly. 

The plot begins with Doc Warren and the story of Evelyn Shaw, a 1920s miracle worker. She created Hope House, a place for orphaned children, in different areas around the world. Some of these children were trained to be weapons under an off-the-books government program. Jake Harris was one of them. In present day, the secret society of the Brethren know Jake is alive, but they don't know who he is. They know him only as Lazarus. However, Jake doesn't remember how to be Lazarus. Though he can be forced to remember. 

Waking Lazarus is an action thriller with guts and killer instincts. To fight the Brethren, Lazarus must be awakened in Jake, but the cost is high. Readers will enjoy the action in the novel as Jake searches for answers and redemption. But this is only the start of the war. The end leaves readers hanging off a cliff, waiting for the battle to really begin. 

Rating: 3.5/5 Cups

The Disillusioned (A Guardian Novel #1)