Stone Guardian by Danielle Monsch
Series: Entwined Realms (#1)
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
Gryphons flying past skyscrapers? Wizards battling it out in coffeehouses? Women riding motorcycles with large swords strapped to their backs? All normal sights since the Great Collision happened twenty-six years ago.
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.
Cory (a.k.a. Navessa, a.k.a. Litchick)- corrupting authors into writing porn since 2013
I went into this book thinking straight PR. I was expecting constant sexual tension, a little bit of a plot, and some light world building, because, for the most part, that’s what I expect from PR. Imagine my surprise when the book started off with the chaos and carnage of WORLDS COLLIDING.
So there I was just innocently reading, when BAM, earthquake. And then WOAH, Orcs. And then GASP, werewolves? And then…no. No it can’t be. That’d be too badass. Don’t tease me this way, it isn’t fair.
Is that…is that a DRAGON???
Oh, and the creature list doesn’t just stop there. On top of what I’ve already listed, this book treats you to gargoyles, mages, wizards, goblins, direwolves, zombies, vampires, necromancers, wraiths and…Fallons. No really, I spent half the book wondering just what the hell this side character was. The chick has fire red hair and wields a sword bigger than she is. Also, there may or may not be flames beneath her skin. Um, wut? I have a theory about her and if it turns out to be true she may be the most badass of the badasses.
But you don’t want to know about her, you want to know about our MCs! Okay fine, I’ll save my musings for later. This story centers on Larissa, a seemingly normal human female, and Terak, a gargoyle clan leader. Larissa lives in a human-only zone, one of many that was formed after what’s been dubbed “The Great Collision”. That’s the whole worlds slamming into each other thing I mentioned earlier. Imagine our world and a magical realm filled with every fantasy creature imaginable now sharing the same space. Pretty neat huh? I sure thought so.
So, because of Larissa’s police chief father and four older brothers, who are all cops, she’s pretty much been raised in a bubble. She thinks everything is hunky dory until she runs face first into a shuffling pack of zombies that shouldn’t even be in her city because of the magical barrier that’s supposed to keep them out.
Enter Terak, who’s been watching her for months because an ego-tripping Oracle told him she was important to his clan and he must watch over her. He becomes her savior and protector through the madness that her life transforms into as they learn that the zombies were very definitely after her. Little by little they discover that she may play a part in a bigger plan and along the way they also realize that they can’t ignore that the trust and the friendship they’ve forged is developing into something stronger. Everything’s not all smooth sailing for these two either, they have a real case of star-crossed lovers going for the first ¾ of the book and it definitely adds to the tension. What can I say? I’m such a sucker for that plot device.
My favorite thing about Larissa is that even though she’s not your typical badass heroine, she’s also not TSTL (other than one incident near the end that triggered a facepalm from me and revolved more around trust than anything else). Not only that, but she’s pretty damn likeable too. Her father and brothers set her up for success with their constant sayings and lessons while she was growing up. They gave her a great set of instincts and so she knows when to run, knows when to hide and most importantly, knows when to get into a car and run something the hell over.
My favorite thing about Terak is that he broke so many of those alpha-broody stereotypes that I’m getting pretty sick of. Yes he’s protective of Larissa but he also builds her up, trusts her to handle herself and encourages her to recognize her strengths. Oh and he’s also not a womanizing man-whore until he lays eyes on her like so many other male leads. In fact, he’s pretty chaste. Everyone say it with me: HALLELUJAH!
I enjoyed the hell out of this book. There was never a dull moment, I was always asking questions and there was always a new creature or a piece of lore for me to digest. So you see, this book is not straight PR. This book is PR meets UF meets High Fantasy. Prufantasy? Sure, why the hell not.
I cannot wait for the next installment and to see where Monsch takes this refreshingly original series.
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