Review: Stone Wings (The Gargoyles of Arrington #1) by Jenn Burke
His curse can only be lifted with true love, but can true love come from a fake date?
Being the personal assistant to a trio of cursed gargoyle brothers who sleep for a hundred years and wake up for twenty-five wasn’t a career proposed by Josh’s high school guidance counselor, but it’s a job that he’s eminently suited for. Not to mention a job his family has been doing for generations. The brothers are truly excellent bosses, but Josh is surprised when Drew offers to pretend to be his date for his high school reunion. And even more surprised by a supposedly fake kiss that feels as real as a kiss can get.
Drew and his brothers owe Josh and his family for watching over them each time they turn to stone for a hundred years, and for helping them reintegrate into the world when they wake up. The least he can do is pose as Josh’s boyfriend for a night. Even though true love can break his curse, he knows he won’t find it with Josh. Nothing that real can come from a lie. Or can it?
When the fake boyfriend situation stretches into two nights, and then more, Josh and Drew can’t fight the attraction blazing between them. There’s no harm in exploring it, right? No expectations. But when paranormal danger comes to Arrington, Josh and Drew are going to have to battle for every moment of peace…and maybe a real happily ever after too.
STONE WINGS is a 50,000 word male/male paranormal romance featuring a mechanic who happens to have wings and is a literal monster in bed, a personal assistant who’s always had a crush on him, stone skin or not, and a relationship that’s going to take a leap of faith to give the fairytale a happy ending.
I read this book on Kindle Unlimited.
Review:
Dear Jenn Burke,
I am not sure how to rate this story. I have read books by this writer before and no matter what, I ended up thinking about those series (I read three book series and the three book spin offs) they all felt complex to me – both the story and characterization. This book did not feel complex at all for the most part. Okay, so the main story was a pure paranormal romance based on a fake relationship becoming a real relationship trope. I liked that at some point, one of the secondary characters calls our main couple in making a walking romance trope (or something like that, because I am not looking the exact wording up). I always enjoy when a romance book (or any book really) does not take itself too seriously.
Actually a fake relationship becoming real is one of my very least favorite romance tropes, most of the time I just do not buy it at all, but here it is kind of worked for me. Probably because Josh already had a crush on Drew for a while and it felt like Drew also did, he just took a little bit of time to admit his feelings to himself and Josh. So the romance worked for the most part. The sex scenes though for the most part did not work at all. And again – it was well enough written, do not get me wrong.
But as it is clear from the blurb, Drew after he was cursed became a gargoyle and the way him being part gargoyle/ cursed gargoyle (not quite sure what is the best description here) is that he can be in his human form, which is hard for him to maintain for too long. He can become a statue Gargoyle when he and his brothers have to go to the curse sleep again and when they are not sleeping they usually revert to their stone form and well, when Drew is having sex in his stone form, he is usually HARD. Josh compares him to a giant dick at some point and I am sorry it made me laugh every single time and I just cannot imagine sex with someone like a stone or dick or whatever. I laughed and I cringed mostly.
So, there is that where Drew and Josh are concerned. But this author usually builds a really great paranormal world for her books and I have a feeling that she *tried* to bring some bits and pieces here as well, so there are some fascinating and sad things that happened to the gargoyle brothers in the past and those things do spill into the modern times where the auction happens in this story, but for the most part the world building felt spotty, and either barely done or felt separate from the love story. It is hard to explain but it frustrated me.
I am guessing book two and three will feature Drew’s brothers finding love.
C
My New Year’s resolution for 2023 is to avoid any fake relationship romances. I’m so sick of them! (I did, however, like “The View Was Exhausting” that Janine recommended because there was a good reason for the fake relationship, and the author used more complex dynamics than “oh no I caught feels for my fake boyfriend”).
I liked Jenn Burke’s “Not Dead Yet” and “Ashes and Dust” trilogies, sorry to hear that this series doesn’t sound very promising.
H.L. Day’s “The Beauty Within” is a m/m gargoyle romance, but the gargoyle is fully human for one month every 25 years. It wasn’t a great book but at least there were no sex scenes with one of the MCs having a stone dick.
Yes fake relationship very often does
Not work for me . Arranged marriage May and usually in historical but fake relationship needs to have a good justification in order to work for me . I enjoyed reading all her other series ( to a different degrees ) but more importantly whether they worked perfectly for me or not , I think that all her other worlds/ characters have complexity . this one does not.
To be fair I think this also had to do with writing for KU. I noted several other authors seemed to
Write less complex stories and characters for KU than what they normally do.
Yeah stone dick is something special :).