Hard to Handle (Gargoyles #5) by Christine Warren

Like her brothers before her, Ash bursts to life immediately aware that something has gone terribly wrong in the world and that this is why she has been summoned. Normally, when a Guardian awakens, a Warden is present to inform of them about what the danger is and to help formulate a plan to keep the Seven in check. Like her brothers before her, Ash must deal with the fact that her newly minted Warden doesn't have the slightest clue about what is going on, or even that he is a person of power. With a threat looming, Ash barely has time to think about the ramifications that she is the first female Guardian ever and that she is developing feelings for Michael. The fate of the world is at risk and Ash and Michael are simply unprepared to meet it. 

Unlike the other books in this series, Warren tried to infuse a little more humour into the story. Anyone who has siblings and has retained a close relationship with them into adulthood should be able to see themselves reflected. Sure, Michael and his four sister are all adults now and are living active and busy lives but that doesn't mean they won't rat each other to their mother or engage in puerile games to get what they want. At times, this approach had me laughing and thinking about my own younger brothers. 

As a male love interest Michael was as crotchity as an old man. I understand that he would have been overwhelmed by a honest to goodness gargoyle coming to life and learning that the forces of evil were aligning but the way that he treated Ash throughout the novel was truly disturbing.  I don't think that Michael actually ever moved past sexualising her and so when he declared love, which is the habit in paranormal series, it didn't fit for even a moment.  Michael barely saw Ash as human let alone an individual person with feelings which could be hurt. This of course was magnified by the fact that the evolution of Michael's relationship with Ash mostly happened through internal monologue rather than shared experiences.

Rocked by Love (Gargoyles #4) by Christine Warren

When Kylie Kramer gets a phone call to inform her that her best friend Bran has died due to a previously unknown heart condition, she's certain that something doesn't smell right about the story. After breaking into Bran's computer and doing some research, Kylie is even more convinced that there's more to the story than she has been told.  Her search for the truth of the death of her friend causes her to enter a battle for the survival of humanity that just might cost her heart.

As you can tell from the man titty on the cover, Rocked by Love, is paranormal romance.  This fourth novel of the series is almost identical to the previous three.  A woman unaware that she wields magical power is attacked close to a statue of a gargoyle which bursts to life to protect her, thus introducing her to a world of magic and danger.  Naturally, she turns out to be the gargoyle's mate. Kylie, like all of the other female love interests balks at the idea that she is destined to be the mate of a Guardian/Gargoyle but is of course convinced by the end of the novel. It's all rather formulaic.

I know, I know. There are those of you who feel that the paranormal romance genre should not get knocked down for being formulaic however, I don't agree.  In the case of Rocked by Love, while the romance itself comes down to paint by numbers, it does have an intriguing plot which continues to hold my interest in the series.  The gargoyles series is focused on stopping agents of darkness from ending humanity and in this entre, Warren even included a surprise ending quite separate from that of the predictable HEA. I want to know what is going to happen with Nocturnis and how our heroes are going to defeat this great amassing power.

In Rocked by Love, Warren used technology as a form of magic to power Kylie.  I found this interesting largely because tech is an industry largely run and ruled by men.  Kylie is an absolute tech mogul and genius, successful enough to never have to work again in her early 20's. Not only is she sure of who she is, she sure of her capabilities.  My biggest problem with her portrayal is that Warren made so much of Kylie being a geek but couldn't seem to follow through with the requisite references and no, tribble slippers alone don't count.

The most obvious thing about Kylie is her Jewishness or rather non Jewishness.  Kylie's father is Jewish; however, she doesn't attend synagogue. or keep Kosher and so does not self define as Jewish. However, Kylie's speech is constantly littered with Yiddish phrases.  Her Jewish heritage is clearly an important part of her identity and something that Warren continually reminds the reader of.  Let me start off by saying that I am far from an expert on Jewish culture, religion or mysticism but as I read Rocked by Love, something felt really wrong to me. I very much want to give Warren credit for not shying away from making her female love interest someone other than the prototype that has come to proliferate this genre but I am not the only reviewer to take issue with her stereotypical and empty characterisation.

Hard as a Rock (Gargoyles #3) by Christine Warren

Wynn Powe comes from a long line of witches.  As a child, Wynn thought that she would grow up to be a member of the Guild and maybe even have her own Guardian to watch over.  Because of the extreme sexism of the Guild, Wynn gave up her childhood dream and watched as her brother fulfilled the role she had once dreamed of. When Wynn finally does get her wish, it's nothing like her childlike fantasy and the Guardian she had once dreamed of, may just want more from her than she is prepared to give.

Hard as a Rock is book three in the Gargoyles series and at least as far as the romance portion of this series, the story has gotten pretty formulaic.  A woman with magical powers wakes a Guardian - a gargoyles who can shift into human form and bound to protect humanity from evil.  Said Guardian is initially amazed by his feelings for the woman but quickly comes to realise that the woman in question is his mate. The female love interest is quickly aware of her attraction but struggles against the idea of a fated mated but by the end of the book comes around. Were the Gargoyle series just about getting to the HEA, I don't think I would be willing to continue.

Warren does seem intent to use one book to wake each Guardian which very much makes the meta feel at times as though it is being dragged out unnecessarily. It's worth noting however that this is a case of mileage may vary.  Though the Gargoyles series is paranormal romance, as evidenced by the Man Titteh on the cover, it also has a very interesting meta which has the characters actively investigating dark magic. It is the latter element that has drawn my attention to the series; however, if you are reading this series especially for the paranormal aspects, you many not mind the slow down in the meta which happened in this book.

Though it is part of the formula to have the female love interest deny her feelings for her Guardian, I really like that Wynn's dissent is based in the idea that if she succumbed to her lust that she would be giving up her free will.  That being said, the importance of agency ends up of course being mute when Wynn gives in and agrees to become Knox's mate. The fact that Knox and Wynn are set up as a couple means that they never address the fact that he is slow to accept her limits and borders on abusive.

"Get off me,” she growled, matching him bared teeth for bared teeth. In another moment, he might have found her attempts at ferocity amusing. Now they just confused him. She wanted him, the beast insisted, wanted him almost as badly as he wanted her, so why was she pushing him away?  

 “I said. Get! Off!”  

This time, he felt a jolt of energy behind her shoves. She still lacked the power to physically move him—he was easily twice her size—but the force broke through the urgent lust clouding his mind, and he eased back a few precious inches.

"That was a really bad idea,” she stated, her voice eerily calm and filled with tangled undertones of anger, fear, desire, and frustration. “I think it would be best if we each got some space and took a little while to cool off. I’m going to go into my bedroom, and I’m going to lock the door.” (pg 84)

Because Knox is certain that Wynn is attracted to him, he doesn't comply immediately when she tells him to stop.  Warren uses woo woo to explain Knox's supposed confusion at an explicit request to stop sexual activity.  Wynn has to actively attack Knox to get him to back off and then tell him that though the he is capable of breaking down her locked door, she expects him to respect her space. None of this should have happened, nor should Knox have had to be told that he couldn't just claim a woman for woo woo reasons.

Stone Cold Lover (Gargoyles #2) by Christine Warren

Felicity is asked to check out a gargoyle statue by a friend.  She finds herself ridiculous drawn to the statue and even dares to break into the museum where it is being displayed in order to look at it with her second sight, certain that there must be some odd about this specific statue. What she doesn't realise is that this decision will bring her to the attention of the noctouris, a group of cultist determined to bring on the end of the world.  Fortunately, the gargoyle she was interested in comes to life and because Spar is a protector, he quickly becomes all that stands between her and destruction.

I'm going to say at the outset that I am not necessarily a fan of paranormal romance; however, there were a lot of moving parts to Stone Cold Lover that held my interest. Yes, a major part of this story is to bring together Spar and Felicity; however, it is set against a plot of trying to stop a series of murders in the Montreal area which have stymied the police.  Felicity is not trained in magic though she has the ability to sense it.  Felicity never shies away from danger and is more than willing to sacrifice herself for her friends.  It's an admirable quality in any protagonist to have.  Normally in these true love scenarios, relationships between women fall by the wayside to center the romance and I am glad to say that Warren very much avoided that.

Felicity is also very much full of snark and refuses to be controlled. At times, it veers into a bit of Kellie Independence. It has become customary for the female love interest to have a tragic backstory and in this case, Warren steps up to the line and shies away from it. Felicity's mother was a drug addict and that made her unable to raise her daughter and so, Felicity was raised by her grandparents. We learn that her grandparents raised her to be resourceful; however, since the death of her grandparents, Felicity has been on her own in the world. I very much like that while Felicity is bothered by her mother's addiction, she very clearly states that she had a happy childhood. Yeah for female love interest that aren't overly damaged and have had good childhoods.

Things have gotten really bad with the dark side because they managed to get the Wardens on the run and blow up their safe house.  This means that the guardians are frozen in stone until someone magical awakes them.  We are told that the guild of Wardens is extremely sexist and only trains perhaps one woman out of every 100 trainees.  Sexism in a very ancient order makes perfect sense to me and I like that the women in Stone Cold Lover are not shy about critiquing this.  My issue is that this line of characterisation for the Guild of Wardens sets up women as temptresses who ultimately distract men from their task.  We are told that the original Guardians had stopped caring about humanity and refused to wake until a woman approached one and it heard her call.  All nine guardians that were awoken by women eventually quit being Guardians and new ones had to be summoned. Over time, Guardians occasionally give up their immortality to mate with women.  The woman as a man stealing Jezebel trope I really could have done without it.

Heart of Stone (Gargoyles #1) by Christine Warren

Ella Harrow is a psychic who keeps to herself and tries very hard to lead a quiet life.  It all changes when she is attacked at the museum where she works and a Guardian (read: Gargoyle) comes to her rescue. Suddenly, this shy woman finds herself on the run for her life in a race to keep evil from overwhelming the earth and bringing an end to humanity.  There's so much at stake and Ella can at best be described as a novice user of magic.  Somehow she has to master magic, stay alive and deal with all of the feelings which Kees arouses in her.

As you may have guessed from the man titty on the cover and the description, Heart of Stone is a paranormal romance. The plot which brings Kees and Ella together really is quite standard though it has the potential to be so much more, if Warren hadn't been so determined to push Kees and Ella together.The plot definitely suffered because of the forced romance. Having characters so quickly fall in love, particularly when Kees had completely frozen out Ella after the first time they were intimate just made the romance seem ridiculous.  It made me wonder if Ella had any self esteem at all?

 In terms of world building, Heart of Stone, would have been far more compelling had Warren focused on building her gargoyle lore. The little work Warren did with gargoyles was spotty at best.  Kees is an immortal being who spends hundreds of years sleeping until he is called to battle by a Warden. The last time he was awoken was in the 1700's and yet he supposedly has a great understanding of the world around him.  English has changed rapidly over the years and yet, Ella has no problem conversing with Kees.  When Kees needs to fly Ella home, he simply goes to the address she gives him.  How is it that a creature who has been asleep since the 1700's can navigate a city as metropolitan as Vancouver and from the air no less, yet land on the appropriate fire escape? Warren decided to present Kees as a man outside of time by his failure to understand pop culture references.  Warren explains Kees's seeming ability to navigate this world by having him slumber yet be aware.  Well, if Kees's was so aware, how come he didn't know that his Warden had been murdered years before?  A man outside of time works but only if he is actually outside of time and difficult to relate to for more reasons than he doesn't get it when he's sarcastically called Yoda.

As a protagonist, Ella alternates between absolutely submissive and irritating and feminist and strong. At the beginning of Heart of Stone, Ella is assaulted twice within the space of a few minutes. She knows that she has power that she can access to defend herself but refuses to kill her potential rapist. Ella almost instantly becomes concerned with her attackers ability to cause problems for her because of his wealth and not only refuses to call the police but almost immediately goes into denial that anything happened.  Ella is rescued from her second attack by Kees, the Gargoyle.  Rather than using her powers against either of her male attackers, Ella decides to aim her magic at Kees, though he saved her and says repeatedly that he won't hurt her.  Normally, after being saved from someone wielding a knife, more people would say thank you and not attack.

Kees is the typical Alpha male that we get in most paranormal series. Under the guise of protecting her, Kees demands to go everywhere Ella goes and even kisses her when he senses another male's interest in her. When Kees attempts to steam roll over Ella however, she doesn't stand for it for one moment.  Ella won't allow Kees to talk about her as though she isn't even in the room and refuses to allow him to make decision for her.  Ella is also quick to notice that all of these ancient organisations seem to lack female members or don't take women seriously.  Ella is absolutely adamant that this amounts to misogyny.