Title: Heart of Stone
Series: Gargoyles bk 1
Author: Christine Warren
Genre: Paranormal
From bestselling author Christine Warren comes a thrilling new series about a young woman caught between a rock and a hard place—between gargoyles and demons…
Ella Harrow is trying to carve out a normal life for herself. Well, as normal as an art geek with psychic abilities can hope for. As museum docent and gift-shop manager, Ella is able to keep her distance from people—and her powers in check—while surrounding herself with the artifacts she loves. But how on earth is she supposed to act normal when a thousand-year-old statue on the museum’s terrace suddenly comes to life?
Heart of Stone
Not your ordinary gargoyle, Kees has been asleep for eons, waiting for a portent of evil to wake him from his slumber. Kees isn’t a vision; he’s a bat-winged guardian created to protect the world from the seven demons of the Dark. Somehow, Ella triggered his reawakening. Maybe the demons have been unleashed? Maybe his heart is finally ready to be chiseled open? The fate of the world isn’t carved in stone…yet.
Thoughts: Christine Warren is one of those paranormal authors I can trust to consistently deliver a well written story, even if I don’t always like them. That however isn’t the case with her newest book and series starter.
When I received this book I was super excited as I love Christine’s books. Then I started reading it. And I have to admit that it was slow going for me. I stuck with the book however and was glad I did as I really did end up enjoying the story.
The premise of the series is that there is an epic battle between good and evil coming and the Gargoyles who were created by these really powerful mages centuries ago will be the ones who defeat the evil coming. The only problem is that those behind the evil, I’ll call them evil mages, have been attacking and killing the mages and Guardian’s so that the Gargoyles can’t be awakened. There are seven Gargoyles and they have been scattered and hidden from the world as their Guardians have been murdered.
So I loved the premise of this series. It’s a very different take on the whole Gargoyle myth, which is always important when it comes to a genre full what feels like the same things over and over again.
What I didn’t like about the book was Ella. She drove me freaking insane, so much that I wanted to reach into the book and slap her more than once. I can’t pinpoint one thing about her that bugged me about her, she just did. Which is a shame as I have a feeling she would and will become a great character in this series. But she was just annoying.
Kees also drove me nuts at times, but I could be more forgiving of him as he’s a thousand years old and has been asleep for centuries. But there were times where even he bugged me, usually when he was reacting to whatever Ella had done to drive him nuts.
I also didn’t like it when the love scenes were started with him as a Gargoyle. This was just to much for me, and I wasn’t sure why she felt the need to do this as she’s never done it before in her shifter stories. I ended up skipping all of those scenes in the off chance she did it again.
Overall this is a good book, and I’m curious to see where she goes with the series, and I’m looking forward to the next book in the series.
Grade B
