Book Review: Heart of Stone by Christine Warren

Heart of Stone by Christine Warren
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I received this ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I requested this book because I don't think I had ever read a gargoyle paranormal romance before, and the idea intrigued me (and as you can see by the lovely man on the cover, he isn't always in gargoyle form). A few pages into the story, I was doubly intrigued because the story takes place in Vancouver, and I always love reading about places I know. I think Christine Warren really knows the area, because she mentions places like the Peace Arch, the Sunshine Coast, and Sechelt that a casual reader may not know.

As you can see, I gave the story 4 stars - I enjoyed the story, even if there were a few nitpicky things had me questioning things and pulling me away from the story. Warren has done a good job of building a conflict between the Guardians (the gargoyles)and the Seven Demons of the Dark, and I am looking forward to reading future books in this series - especially since it looks like she is keeping the story in Canada for the time being.

I had issues with Ella, the heroine of the story - to me, her personality was all over the place. I understand there is a certain amount of growth when she receives long-neglected training and she finds out her role in the conflict - but the evolution seemed jumpy. I wanted to like her - and when I liked her best was when she would get angry and snarky - but overall it fell short. Kees Livingston (Ha! I did like that pun!) seemed emotionally stunted - and I had to keep reminding myself it was because he didn't have emotions!

What distracted me the most from the story were unrealistic situations with Kees. At the beginning of the story, he saves Ella, and takes her to her home when she gives him her apartment address. Does he have GPS? He admits himself that he has been in his stone form for 65 years. Vancouver has changed a great deal in 65 years! He explains that his slumber is light and he hears things while asleep, but I can't accept that the snippets of conversation he hears while people walk by his statue who fill in all of these blanks. This is even confirmed later in the story when Kees and Ella are looking for the Guild in Paris - Ella considers just getting the street address but then admits to herself that "Cities, especially major ones, had changed over centuries."

I would recommend this story to people who like paranormal romances and perhaps are tiring of vampires and shifters. The gargoyles are a different path, and I am interested to learn more about where the Guardians come from, and how that connects to where the demons come from.

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Book Review: Picture Perfect by Alessandra Thomas

Picture Perfect by Alessandra Thomas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Cat, a college student and former model, suffered a horseback riding accident, and was laid up for 10 months with surgeries, PT, steroids, and in that time, managed to gain 60 pounds. She is no longer comfortable in her skin anymore, and is suffering from some very emotional body dysmorphia. I started out with the book a little jaded - oh, boohoo - you are a gorgeous college student who is tall and a size 12. What drew me in was Cat's pain in her recovery - physical pain, not emotional. It wasn't just that she was now a heavier version of herself, but that her wounds, surgeries, and scars even prevented her from even trying to get back to her former self, so she needed to learn to love the body she has now. She starts seeing a therapist, who sets her on a couple of tasks of body acceptance, the first of which was to pose nude for an art class. She meets a young man with previous body issues of his own, and the two of them fall into a whirlwind relationship. I am not entirely happy with how the book ended - I felt the therapist's role in the story was sort of cut at the end, and it seemed to me the book ended abruptly. This book was a little difficult for me to read. As a plus size woman myself, some of the things that Cat went through in the book - especially that issue of someone only being interested in you when he is drunk, really struck home and I found myself crying at points while reading the book. I wished more of Cat's friends had been accepting of her new form - her friend, Joey, was a goldmine - but seems that many of her other sorority sisters stepped back and didn't seem to care what she was going through.

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Book Review: Ophelia And The Marvelous Boy by Karen Foxlee

Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy by Karen Foxlee
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I received this ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I was entranced with this book from the start. As soon as I started at the chapter title, Vanity Fair-esque with the hint of what is to come: "In Which Ophelia Jane Worthington-Whittard discovers a boy in a locked room and is consequently asked to save the world," I knew that I was going to devour this book. Ophelia is an eleven year old girl whose mother has recently died of a lingering illness, and she is grasping for connections. Her father is absorbed in his curator work, and has brought Ophelia and her sister, Alice to a foreign city so he could open an exhibition on swords. With her father busy and her sister emotionally distant, Ophelia spends her time wandering the immense museum, inspecting galleries, and it is during this time that she meets a boy in a locked room who needs her to release him, find a sword, and save the world. Ophelia is a very practical sort of girl - she belongs to the Children's Science Society of Greater London - and she needs proof, and has a hard time accepting the Marvelous Boy's stories and accounts of magic. She must go on a series of quests through the museum to find the items she needs to save the Marvelous Boy, each time testing her resolve and belief in science versus magic. Karen Foxlee completely drew me in with this story, and reading this story over Christmas was the best timing ever with the impending winter and incessant cold of the museum. My only complaint, and it is a small one, is that the story ends very quickly. I wanted to know more about the Snow Queen and what happened after the final conflict. I think Foxlee's writing compares very favorably to Lemony Snicket's, and I would recommend this book to readers 8 - 12 years old.

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