Heart of Stone: A Beauty and Beast Novel (Gargoyles, #1)

by Christine Warren

Kees is a gargoyle, one of a group of supernatural guardians created to protect the world from the seven demons of the Dark. In an earlier age, he and his brother warriors defeated creatures and banished them. With their duty done, the guardians settled in to sleep until a new threat arose. So why on earth would he awaken to nothing more than a small female woman? Gargoyles are the strike force of demon control but Kees cannot see the threat. It certainly isn't coming from Ella, but something about her must have woken him from his sleep. She must be the key to uncovering his new mission. With her by his side, he begins to unravel of trail of clues that leads to only one conclusion: somehow, the portals he and his brothers had thought were sealed have begun to open.

• ISBN10: 1466841796
• ISBN13: 9781466841796
• Publish Date: 31 December 2013 (first published 1 December 2013)
• Publish Status: Active
• Imprint: St. Martin's Press
• Format: eBook
• Pages: 320
• Language: English

Reviews

[Melanie]

2.5 stars.

I'm normally a fan of Christine Warren and have read and enjoyed her "Novels Of The Others" series. This book just didn't do it for me. I found myself skimming through it just to finish and hoping that it would get better. I found the heroine boring and the hero to be overbearing and cold, but then I guess he is made of stone. I even got where I skipped over the sex scenes completely to finish the book more quickly. I am disappointed because I've always enjoyed her stories in the past and found her characters funny and gratifying, but that was not the case with this book. I will not continue with this series.

[EBookObsessed]

Ella has been trying to hide the power the lives inside of her all her life. The power that spilled out of her when she was a child and destroyed her world. Although Ella wants to deny that it exists, there are those who feel the magic inside her and are drawn to it and if she won’t use that magic, they will take it from her.

When she is attacked one night in the garden of the museum where she works, at the feet of the large gargoyle statue, she is not sure what is scarier–the fact that she is being attacked or the fact that a giant gargoyle has come to her rescue.

Kees is surprised to be awoken by the little human. Guardians can only be awakened by their Warden, who is a member of the Guild, and only to fight the Darkness, not to help a human woman who is being mugged.

But it is a good thing for the universe that Ella was able to awaken Kees, the noturnis, who serve the Darkness have finally realized the way to win the war against the Guardians. While the Guardians slept, the notornis have been killing off the Wardens so that there would be none to awaken the Guardians while the Darkness takes over the world.

Now is it up to Kees and Ella to locate the rest of the Guardians and try to wake them without the magic of the Wardens, but with just the two of them against a notornis army, do they have any hope to win?

THOUGHTS:
Although this was an interesting story with a nice set up for future novels, I was quite distracted by the fact that the sleeping Guardian woke up way too familiar with the modern world even though he is over 1000 years old, he hasn’t fought the Darkness since the 1700′s and the last time he was awoken to meet his newest human Guardian was 65 years ago. Now this was addressed by saying the Guardians were in more like a coma like state where they were aware of the world around them but I still felt that hearing vague pieces of information from people wandering around a museum shouldn’t have a Guardian up to speed on a world that has significantly changed in 65 years. My mother-in-law hasn’t been asleep for the last 65 years but we still have a hard time explaining to her about apps on an Ipad.

As an example, Ella makes a Star Wars joke about turning to the dark side (it was clever), and Kees appears to understand it, although he has never watched a movie and a reference to joining the dark side should have confused him since they are fighting the Darkness.

Like any good fish out of water story, it should have taken some time for Kees to acclimate to his newly awakened environment.

This wasn’t the best Guardian story that I have ever read although it could have potential.