A new series from C E Murphy, and it's good. I love her other series (the Walker papers), but I'm impressed with both her premise and characters. She's getting stronger as a writer, and while there are a few weak areas, in general I can't wait to read the next one. ( )

"Talking to you in the park the same night that girl died was an unspeakably bad coincidence" Alban to Margrit

That's just one of my problems with this book, he watches her for 3 years and speaks to her on the night of the 1st murder. 2nd coincidence Cara another of the old races comes to her for help, why because she was on TV. She arrives on the same day that Grit wins the pardon and is on TV isn't that awful fast. BTW Cara is a squatter, does she even have a TV or power to run it? 3rd bad coincidence her mother already knows the vampire. 4th coincidence her sometimes boyfriend is in charge of the murder investigation. I take it that later in the series perhaps the author is going to reveal why all these coincidences take place. My other big problem with the book is the length of the opening before much of anything "fantasy" takes place. The first 75 pages read more like a legal thiller than an "urban fantasy novel" I think that the info in those pages might better have been presented later in the story and get right into the puzzle/action with the background added later. Just my opinion but I think I would have enjoyed the book more that way if it had started out in the night club.

( )

Enjoyed the book and would read the sequels, but maybe not if I had to pay full price for them. I think it was sort of middle of the road. The characters weren't all there, but I liked them. The plot was missing some important details, but it was well paced and highly readable. I liked it more than Urban Shaman, but that seems to be an uncommon opinion, so I'd recommend starting with Urban Shaman if you want to pick up some of C.E. Murphy's stuff. ( )

A very fun read, which kept me up most of the night.

Murphy's Walker trilogy played along the line between fantasy and chic lit, but those came down more on the urban fantasy side of the genre divide. That is not true of Heart of Stone, which feels much more like a romance--albeit one with two possible heroes. That's not a criticism, but if you're not a romance reader, you'll probably want to skip this one. ( )

Liked:

Grit, our hero. She's mixed race, does not hesitate to point out social injustices, and wants, desperately wants, to kick some ass. She has issues about being used for her race in cases where her class makes her other than the stereotype she's been cast as, but realizes that she, herself, plays on stereotypes when they will help her as a lawyer.

Grit's closest friends and roomies, Cole and Cam. Their friendship, how they support Grit, how Grit values it, pays it back, and desperately wants to cling to it even as she feels it slipping away as she becomes more and more involved with the Old Races.

Gargoyles and their role among the Old Races as preservers of history and memory. The way Alban holds himself apart from the gestalt. Alban's honor.


Disliked:

Of all the old races--dragons and djinn, selkies and gargoyles, and vampires--the vampires say they came from another world. They don't make a lot of sense to me in the context of the rest of the book's mythology. Why not choose a powerful race that fits with the rest of them?

The Big Bad. I didn't like that her motivations were so simple and so motivated by gender. I especially did not like the gender aspect of this. I understand that it was done to confuse the identity of the villain, but it still felt wrong to me.

The on-again, off-again relationship Grit has with Tony. I do like the reasons they break up, because job conflicts are a huge deal as are differing ideologies, but it seemed far too easy for Grit to either leave or return to Tony. ( )