The Guardian (novel)
Encyclopedia
The Guardian is the 7th novel
by American writer Nicholas Sparks
.
The book is a love story/thriller about a Great Dane named Singer and a widow named Julie trying to find a new life partner
. Among those she considers are Mike, an old friend of hers, and Richard, a successful manager. The reader views Julie through Richard's eyes as his former wife who had tried to escape him. He had hunted her down and killed her as he did to everyone who got in his way.
Julie had married her first husband, Jim, as he was the one and only man she ever loved. His sudden death drove her into despair. Before Jim's death, he made an arrangement with a friend to give Julie a Great Dane, a dog that Jim had always wanted to own. She names him Singer and he joins her life acting more and more human. After a while she starts to date men again but is still deeply unsatisfied by their behavior and character.
Mike is good friends with Julie and was also friends with Jim but is like a brother who is not eligible for dating. He feels he cannot ask Julie out due to his previous relationship with their family. He dislikes and believes he cannot compete with Richard.
Singer is the title character and the catalyst in the story. He pushes the relationship of Mike and Julie, sensing that Richard is not as he seems.
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by American writer Nicholas Sparks
Nicholas Sparks (author)
Nicholas Charles Sparks is an internationally-bestselling American novelist and screenwriter. He has 16 published novels, with thematic ideas that include cancer, death and love. Six have been adapted to film, including Message in a Bottle, A Walk to Remember, The Notebook, Nights in Rodanthe,...
.
The book is a love story/thriller about a Great Dane named Singer and a widow named Julie trying to find a new life partner
Life partner
A life partner is a romantic or otherwise very close friend for life. The partners can be of the same or opposite sexes, married or unmarried, and monogamous or polyamorous....
. Among those she considers are Mike, an old friend of hers, and Richard, a successful manager. The reader views Julie through Richard's eyes as his former wife who had tried to escape him. He had hunted her down and killed her as he did to everyone who got in his way.
Themes
The novel deals with the themes of obsession and true love. It shows the inner world of a highly intelligent murderer living with no ethics at all.Plot
Richard is a murderer, starting his career as a boy killing his father in a carefully planned "accident". He is extremely clever in creating false evidence; in one example, he hurts himself deliberately with a knife after beating two foster brothers so they will get in trouble for severely hurting him. He falls in love with a woman (Jessica) but leaves her no personal space to live. She tries to escape a few times, but he eventually finds and kills her. Then he takes over the identity of another man he has watched for some time before killing him. He meets Julie by chance and is stunned by her resemblance to his first wife. He wants to "own" Julie out of obsessive love.Julie had married her first husband, Jim, as he was the one and only man she ever loved. His sudden death drove her into despair. Before Jim's death, he made an arrangement with a friend to give Julie a Great Dane, a dog that Jim had always wanted to own. She names him Singer and he joins her life acting more and more human. After a while she starts to date men again but is still deeply unsatisfied by their behavior and character.
Mike is good friends with Julie and was also friends with Jim but is like a brother who is not eligible for dating. He feels he cannot ask Julie out due to his previous relationship with their family. He dislikes and believes he cannot compete with Richard.
Singer is the title character and the catalyst in the story. He pushes the relationship of Mike and Julie, sensing that Richard is not as he seems.