Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Readability: 📖📖📖📖📖
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔💔
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋💋💋💋 (I LOVED the steamy scenes in this one – perfect blend of emotional pull and details and explicitness for me)
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑🍑
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Humor: A bit
Perspective: First person from both hero and heroine
More character focused or plot focused? character
How did the speed of the story feel? slow to medium
When mains are first on page together: First chapter (in statue form) – first interaction is at the end of chapter 4, so a little while
Cliffhanger: No, this ends with a happily ever after
Epilogue: Yes (maybe a few months in the future?)
Format: read e-book version from kindle unlimited

Should I read in order?
I believe this is a stand alone?

Basic plot:
Summer’s work has always been overseen by the stone gargoyle behind the desk at Hopkin’s Museum of the Strange. She realizes he is more than a statue when he comes to get in a dream...

Give this a try if you want:
- Monster romance (contemporary time period)
- small town setting
- gargoyle hero/human heroine
- size difference – the hero is nearly a foot and a half taller than the heroine
- I could say virgin hero but he definitely doesn’t act like one 😂
- save the world
- branding (with some fated mates vibes)
- protective/possessive hero
- higher steam – 4 full scenes with some hot partials/shorter scenes

Ages:
- Didn’t see them mentioned. Would guess Summer is mid to late 20s while Zuriel is hundreds, possibly thousands, of years old

First line:
I push my glasses higher up my nose and glance over the small group of tourists in front of me.

My thoughts:
I absolutely adored this book!

I know some of the complaints were that it was slow and boring but I just love those simple, super character focused books like that. I loved the slow build up of tension and getting to know each other in this one. I do agree some parts were slow to me – mainly when Zuriel was in statue form during sunlight hours but I think that is because I was so in love with them together I just wanted it all the time!

I thought the tension was so good. I loved the emotional pull of the sex scenes here. When I was like ¾ of the way through I went and ordered more books by the authors because I was loving it so much! It was just really tugging on my emotions and I was breathless for them...

I had some minor issues with some pacing. And just when I was starting to get very frustrated with Summer for not talking to her parents about her comfort level with a side character (they had a good relationship, so I didn’t see why she was enabling it!) she finally did it, so I was placated a bit.

I loved how gentle and protective Zuriel was. And I loved Summer! I saw some reviewers say she was annoying and useless and her glasses were mentioned 6000 times – and I found her so relatable. I also wear glasses and am useless and probably annoying 😂😂 I love you Summer!!! I loved this couple.

Minor qualm

Is this a child free HEA? Zuriel was surprised there was semen in his new cock, but he’s sure gargoyle’s can’t reproduce. The epilogue doesn’t say so I’m assuming it remains that way but am hesitant to mark it as such 

Cock/Hero Stats:

- wings, clawed hands, curved horns and tail
- dream cock??? is so cold – like a popsicle that doesn’t melt
- fangs
- Zuriel learns to hide his cock inside him
- he can fly and draws bats to him wherever he goes
- turns to stone during the day

Quotes/thoughts: (Any mistakes are my own)

“My name is…”
My eyes crack open, and I look around my room thinking I heard a voice. The cut on my hand tingles.
There’s nobody. Yawning, I flip onto my side and snuggle back into my bedding.
Something cold brushes my lips. Softly swaying back and forth, it whispers like a kiss. I turn over and lift my hands to my mouth.
My lips are chilled like they’d been caressed by frost.
---
Stomping to the doors, I step out onto the balcony, my teeth gritted like vices. As I try to look beyond, I realize I’ve made a big mistake.
The gargoyle crouches on the railing, cast in the moonlight. He straightens, becoming a towering, gothic sight, his webbed wings spanning out from his body, surround by a cloud of bats.
---
Her brow wrinkles as she drops her gaze to the floor. “I knew he was too handsome to be human,” she says under her breath.
Handsome?
Handsome!?
The word strikes me with unprecedented rage and shame. A growl rips from my throat as my wings rush against my body, thrusting outward, each wingbone stretched and strained.
Being handsome has never mattered, not until I heard the word on her lips. No wonder she was terrified of me the other night. I am...grotesque.
---
Taking the chains in my grip, I tear them apart. The thick metal clinks.
As I toss them to the ground, Summer bumps against my flexed arm. She shudders again. “God, you’re strong.”
She compliments me...She finds me strong.
My cock bursts through the magical binding to drop between my legs.
---
He releases my wrists and clamps his hand around my neck, holding me against the monument’s wall. He pins me there, and his gaze leisurely roams up and down my body. Aroused by his attention, I arch back.
His face nears mine, mouth parting into a fanged snarl to say something more, something about the wrongness of this, but I interrupt him.
“Kiss me,” I whisper.
His glinting gaze drops to my lips.
---
His eyes never move from mine. “If you do not tell me to stop, I will demand more than stories and laughter. Your kisses will only be the beginning.”
 

Content warnings: (This should be taken as a minimum because I could have missed some!)

- scenes of possession, talk of angels, demons and hell
- death on page/fire

Locations of kisses/intimate scenes:

Safe sex: 

  No, but even though there’s semen, gargoyles can’t reproduce 

Hows the consent? 

good! 

5% - 🔥 heroine self pleasure while she sucks the invisible stone dick
Something cold brushes my lips. Softly swaying back and forth, it whispers like a kiss. I turn over and lift my hands to my mouth.
My lips are chilled like they’d been caressed by frost.

26% - heroine self pleasure – it’s a bit short so I decided not to count it
35% - primal play scene that leads to cock touches in the graveyard and a branding – I consider this a very hot partial!
49% - 🔥kisses, he puts her on the desk and gives her oral
Unable to deny this any longer, he grinds his cock into my abdomen, groaning deeply. His other hand twists into my hair as his brow drops to mine.
“Summer,” he groans.
He pushes hard along my stomach.
I close my eyes and moan around him, my whole body clenching.
“Enough!” He yanks his hand out of my grasp, slamming his fist onto the floor, and takes my mouth.
56% - 🔥sex against the wall, anal tail play
”Invoke me, tell me to stop,” I goad. “I’m not done with you.”
Her lips flatten as she holds my gaze. Her cheeks flush prettily, stirring my tongue to strain against the roof of my mouth. I could stuff it into her mouth before she speaks.
“This is our first night together.” I seize her arms and clutch her wrists between us, exposing her. “I want more of you before it ends.”
“More?” she whispers. “You’re not spent?”
“Spent? Is that possible?”
61% - 🔥oral for her, blow job for him
Leaning down, she takes hold of my erection with both hands and kisses the tip.
I go still, my wings bracing against the wall, arching with strain. Tension floods my limbs as she kisses my tip, again and again, caressing it with her soft lips. She kisses and kisses and kisses.
92% - oral for her (it’s pretty short and I decided not to count)
97% - some elevator foreplay