Series: Entwined Realms*
Release Date: July 3rd, 2013
Well, not normal for everyone. Larissa Miller may have been born after the Great Collision, but as a history teacher who lives in the human-only city, she has never come into contact with any other race or species, nor has she wanted to. Her life is as ordinary as it gets – that is, until one day she walks out of her apartment and is attacked by a mob of Zombies, only to be saved by a Gargoyle.
Gargoyles trust no one outside their Clan, but due to a cryptic prophecy, Terak, Leader of the Gargoyles, has been watching over the human woman for months. While he can find no reason why the woman has been singled out, something about her stirs every protective instinct within him. When the attack confirms that the threats against her exist and are real, he convinces Larissa that though their races have never been allies, the best chance of discovering why she has been brought into his world is by working together.
In the course of their investigation, Terak becomes entranced by his little human. But when he discovers why Necromancers want her and the great reward that awaits him if he betrays her, he must choose between the welfare of his Clan and not only Larissa’s life, but the fate of this New Realm as well.
• BIPOC characters
• LGBTQIA+ characters
• characters with a disability
And doesn’t address fatphobia
• The prologue is quite sad–it’s in the Heroine’s father’s POV, and it’s when the Heroine’s mother dies
• Does have OW (the Hero is engaged to an OW, however, in his culture, you don’t have sex with someone until after you’re mated.)
• No descriptive sex scene with OW/OM (The Hero and Heroine are virgins.)
• Does have the Hero and Heroine pushing away
• Does not have a separation between the Hero and Heroine
• See Ending for HEA status.
• See Possible Triggers for Abuse and OTT sad parts.
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
*Each novel in the series is Standalone
Stone Guardian is an adorable romance but also an engrossing and realistic urban fantasy novel. Initially, I didn’t think I was going to like the heroine, Larissa. A heroine who purposefully buries her head in the sand is really annoying. But, the heroine definitely made up for her purposeful ignorance by being smart and realistic about her strengths and weaknesses. How many times in books do authors write kickass heroines, only for them to do dumb things? I can name many, but in this book, Larissa acknowledges that she’s not a fighter and knows to get help when she needs it. She’s smart.
Interestingly, there was no “good” side in Stone Guardian. While there were the “bad” guys who mainly wanted to end the world as everyone knew it, there were multiple ‘factions’ of good guys, all with different priorities, making the world-building of this novel more intricate and the story more realistic. The supernatural secret force group, for one, was just as clueless as to why Larissa was targeted as everyone else, even though they were obviously quite superior when it came to military capabilities.
While Stone Guardian is a romance, it does an excellent job of detailing the growth of Larissa as a character. In the beginning, Larissa is a woman who is content with her human life, sans monsters and is quite happy ignoring anything that goes bump in the night. This disposition is to her detriment when she starts being attacked by an array of monsters who are looking to kidnap her for some nefarious purposes. It really annoyed me when Terak, the Leader of the Gargoyles, informs her of the threat against her life, and she’s so desperate for life to stay the same that she refuses to believe she could be the target.
The best part of the romance between Larissa and Tarek is the unconditional acceptance of each other. Larissa is thrown into the supernatural world with no warning or preparation–she’s a high school teacher for god’s sake–and is not even physically capable of protecting herself. Being exposed to the kickass women from the supernatural investigating unit (don’t remember their official name), Larissa gets self-conscious since she has to be protected. Tarek sums it up perfectly though, not everyone can be a warrior, and his acceptance of who Larissa is was really nice. The same applies to Larissa’s attitude toward Tarek. Her whole life Larissa has wanted an ordinary life, but for a human who is so opposed to the supernatural, she is accepting of Tarek as a gargoyle.
In all, Stone Guardian is a great action and romance novel, but issues with the heroine’s personality and her family set the book back for me a bit.
Note: Monsch has released an epilogue of Larissa and Tarek called Stone Embrace.
