Thursday, January 29, 2015

REVIEW: Of Shadow and Stone by Michelle Muto


Of Shadow and Stone
Gargoyles were created centuries ago to protect mankind, but something went horribly wrong. Now only the sentinel—a mortal chosen to control the stone beasts—stands between them and their human prey.

When the latest sentinel is killed, Kate Mercer is destined to take his place. But Kate has enough going on in her life—like a skyrocketing film career, a delusional ex-boyfriend, and a crazed stalker who will stop at nothing to get to her. But the powers that be have decided, and Kate is transported to Shadow Wood, a mysterious castle that serves as a sanctuary for the supernatural. Although beautiful, Shadow Wood is no safe place for a mere mortal. Yet Kate is drawn not only to the gargoyles but also to Ian McGuire, a charming novelist who might be in the greatest danger of all.

As Kate decides whether to accept the most perilous role of her life, she discovers there are more secrets than answers within the castle’s walls. Her survival and Ian’s depend on her ability to master the gargoyles before time runs out. Is fate really cast in stone?


I received an ecopy of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

MY THOUGHTS
This book was not at all what I expected. I thought that this would be an action-packed paranormal with gargoyles! Gargoyles! I've read very few books with gargoyles as the main creature, so I was excited to read this one! Sadly, this book fell flat.

Kate Mercer is an actress and few the past few years she has been playing a major role in the Dark Fall trilogy. She's used to paranormal elements being only on screen until, every night, she has extremely realistic dreams of haunting a castle. Ian McGuire is an author and has been invited to the castle to research for his books. What's most interesting to him is a supposed "ghost" haunting the halls of the castle. Both will discover what is truly going on in the castle and the roles they both need to play.

Sounds interesting, right? But this book just didn't reach up to the expectations I had. A majority of the book was just Kate trying to decide is she really wanted to be the next sentinel. I understand that it takes awhile to decide, but probably 70% of the book was just this. The other percent was a weird add-on storyline with a crazed stalker. Again, I understand that, as an actress, she has stalkers, but this really wasn't necessary for the story. Especially since the first part reads as a paranormal and the last part reads as a thriller, they don't really work together,

I was also really confused by the castle. The castle is a Sanctuary for supernatural creatures and I guess it just bothered me that there were other supernatural creatures just seemingly added into the story. But what bothers me the most is just has the characters don't seem shocked at all by this. Sure, Ian chalks all this up to an elaborate act at first, but he still doesn't act that surprised. The world-building and character development in general was just lacking. Everything felt flat in this book and I, honestly, couldn't care less for the characters.

Now, I keep bashing on this book, but it's not that horrible. The ideas behind this book were really good and I would've loved to read more about them. Sadly, this book went about the ideas the wrong way.

IN CONCLUSION
This book isn't a bad book, but it really just fell flat. I hate saying this, but I don't really recommend this book. There are other books about gargoyles that are much more exciting.

I hereby give this book
2 Stars
Meaning: It was okay

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