Stone Cold Seduction by Jess Macallan early review

Stone Cold Seduction by Jess Macallan (Set in Stone #1)

Egalley thanks to Entangled Publishing, LLC


Synopsis from Goodreads
When a regular night of Robin Hood-ery results in the manifestation of some, um, unusual paranormal abilities, perfume-maker Elleodora Fredricks realizes the normal world she lives in isn’t quite… normal. And neither is she, thanks to her father, king of the shadow elves. Not only is he evil incarnate and the reason Elle moonlights as a burglar—someone has to take care of all his victims—he’s stolen her memories.

And only reading her fate can fix that.

Good thing she’s got a trio of hotties willing to help her find said fate, but only if she gives them something in return. Saving her oracle BFF’s fiance, falling in love with the gargoyle, and making up for breaking the phoenix’s heart ought to be a piece of cake for the princess of the shadow elves.

If only the king didn’t want his daughter dead…

Publication date: 5/09/2011

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Stone Cold Seduction is fairly light, amusing urban fantasy. Elle has this wry sense of humour which captivated me straight away. 

"I jerked at the unexpected male voice, sloshing coffee on my hand and the table. “Damn! MacLean, what are you doing here? And why do you always sneak up on me when I’m holding hot coffee?”
MacLean didn’t answer. I noticed his copper eyes were streaked with flame.
“Guys, can we tone it down? Please? Can we have one conversation where no one loses a shirt, is on fire, turns to stone, or growls uncontrollably?”

She is this artsy new age woman, owner of a spa products shop, products which she creates herself. Her only drawback is her evil dad. She thinks he is some sort of mafia man and from time to time she steals some precious stones or antiques from him to donate the money to the families of his victims.


However, reality is much more complicated. Dear daddy is a king of shadow elves, and Elleodora is his heir.


On the night of her latest burglary, Elle is saved from being seen by her hot new employee Jax who suddenly sprouts wings and drops them from multi-storied building. Bewildered, Elle finds out that her world is not what it seems. Her best friend is an oracle, Jax is gargoyle and she actually has an ex-fiance phoenix whom she can't remember because dear dad wiped her memories...


Elle starts manifesting powers unusual even for her new world and her time is running out as everyone wants to either use or kill her, and the only way to save herself is for Elle to read her fate...


Loved everything in the book, but love relationship between Elle and Jax. I'm not a big fan of soul mates idea as I said before, and here it's done particularly badly. Everything happens super fast, unbelievably fast, and all these smoochies and swoons were making me gag. He was calling her his "little gem" for God's sake! It's even worse than "ma petite"! 


Other than that I loved that Elle's character develops really well and she finally grows a pair to stand up to her dad. I'm looking forward to the next installment and well done to Jess Macallan for such an interesting book!


Verdict: refreshing, fast read, full of humour and drama. If you like Mary Janice Davidson and Kerrelyn Sparks, I think you'll like this one as well.

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Ну наворотили, наворотили же! В общем-то смешная, взбаломошная, оригинальная книжка. За исключением дурацкой любовной линии. Ну зачем из хорошего городского фэнтэзи пытаться делать паранормальный роман?!

Мало того, что наша девушка влюбляется в Джакса - горгулью и очень быстро соглашается, что она его вторая половинка и т.д. и т.п. Так он её ещё через всю книгу называет little gem *бьюсь головой об стенку* Даже ma petite на порядок выше! Жуть как раздражало, а нашу девушку это просто умиляло...

В остальном, понравилось, что Эль оказывается каким-то гибридом, полубогиней, из-за чего у неё проявляются интересные способности в самые неподходящие моменты. Хороший юмор и интригующая история. Иногда конечно доходит до глупостей, но это уже погрешности жанра. Я бы сказала, что книга понравится любителям Мэри Джанис Дэвидсон и Келлерин Спаркс.

7.5/10