Customer Reviews

Heart of Stone (The Negotiator Trilogy, Book 1)

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Some might say Magrit Knight was looking for trouble when she ran through Central Park at midnight. Whatever her intentions were, trouble found her when a handsome blonde man approached her during a brief rest. After she got back to the apartment she shares with two friends, she discovered he was wanted in a murder that took place in the park right after their conversation.

Then, he contacts Magrit again asking for her help--she's a Legal Aid attorney and he believes he's being framed for murder. Oh, by the way--he's a gargoyle. Alban Korund is one of the Old Races--gargoyles, selkies, etc who have lived among us in hiding for many years.

If Alban wasn't enough, Magrit's also agreed to represent a selkie Mom and her child whose building is being destroyed against a prominent industrialist. Oh, and what about Grace O'Malley, who some say is a modern pirate?

"Heart of Stone" is a great opening to the new Negotiator series from Luna. C. E. Murphy's really honed her craft as a mystery writer--she's got more hooks in this story than a bait shop. Chapter One gets your attention and the remainder of the text keeps hold.

Magrit's the kind of tough heroine urban fantasy readers love. And she uses that toughness to fight for deserving people with good causes.

There's definitely going to be some romantic tension in this story. Magrit's on-again-off-again lover is Tony, a homocide detective, who isn't entirely enthralled with her career or her clients. Then, there's Alban.

Plus, already Ms. Murphy's touched on some less common races of fantasy origins: gargoyles and selkies. I'm looking forward to seeing what other types of beings she'll introduce us to in later novels.

Lawyer Margrit Knight knows running in New York's Central Park after nightfall isn't exactly the safest way to spend her time, but she works late and needs the exercise. Still, the beautiful man who approaches her seems simultaneously fascinating and dangerous. She escapes him only to find that he's been implicated in a Central Park murder that occurred only minutes after they parted.

Margrit's sometime-boyfriend, homicide cop Tony, desperately wants to talk to her mystery man, Alban. But Margrit can't believe Alban killed a woman--no matter how strong the evidence against him. When Tony uses Margrit as a tool to track Alban down, she wonders about their relationship, and about her feelings for Alban. As she probes, though, Margrit discovers a whole world she had no idea existed--a world of dragons, vampires, selkies, and gargoyles.

Author C. E. Murphy introduces us to a world of super-masculine but not quite human males. Daisani, the vampire, Janx, the dragon, and Alban the gargoyle all seem fascinated by Margrit, admiring her spunk and fearlessness (old races females, in contrast, seem to come in cowardly and crazy--maybe that's why the old races males are so fascinated by Margrit). Margrit flies from dangerous male to dangerous male, attempting to discover the true killer's identity and, by the way, head off a housing condemnation and help the police arrest a copycat killer.

Murphy's writing kept me involved in the story, but I had a hard time identifying with the energetic but not very thoughtful Margrit. I would have thought a lawyer would think things through a bit before acting, but Margrit seemed more into acting first and thinking never. Margrit's fascination with Alban seemed more based on physical attraction than on any real shared interest (and his fixation on her came from his continued feelings for his long-lost wife). I would also have expected a bit more of an emotional resolution when Margrit finally confronted the real Central Park killer.

HEART OF STONE holds promise, but ultimately it only partially delivered on these promises.

I am a big fan of the authors' Urban Shaman series, so when this book came out I bought it right away. Overall I managed to finish it but I didn't love it. The heroine is very annoying- who in the world would insist on running in Central Park in the middle of the night.Why would someone smart and strong do such a thing! It is like one of those cheesy horror movies where the young actress knows her friends are being killed by something nasty and yet stays alone in the house and wanders down to the basement alone!
I like that the heroine is African American, but why do we have to focus on the fact that she is a light skinned woman of color? Who cares whether she is cafe au lait colored or ebony! She is attracted to the gargoyle and several comments are made that one reason is because his skin color is white as marble.
The Urban Shaman series had a vulnerable heroine who was in no way perfect.This heroine is perfect in nearly every way, from being beautiful to being smart to being a defender of the poor. She is too good to be true. Also in the Urban Shaman series there was a nice romantic tension between the protagonists, here the gargoyle is already in love with her. I am dissappointed that the author has put the Urban Shaman series on hold for a couple of more years to focus on this series. She is capable of really creative work, but this was more streotypical urban fantasy.

I bought this and the sequel because it was recommended to me. It sounded promising. I love the urban fantasy books and the notion of combining gargoyles and a crusading lawyer seemed like fun.

Most of the other reviewers liked the book, but it never clicked with me. I have to agree with the reviewer who said that the book was slow to start. I also found it very slow. Although Margrit and Alban do make contact of a sort (ala Angel stalking Buffy kind of thing if you watched Buffy The Vampire Slayer), the pair don't have a real conversation until over half way through the book.

So you don't really learn much about the author's vision of gargoyle culture/society before then. There's just vague hints. After that you may find out more. I don't know. I lost patience and stopped reading after Alban and Margrit started really interacting and the book still felt slow.

As a pet peeve, I'm put off by characters with 'cute' names. The whole tough lawyer nicknamed 'Grit' bit had me sighing. I could have gotten over that, but then most of the half that I did manage to read dwelt on Margrit's faltering relationship with her policeman boyfriend, Tony, and their fights, and relationship issues, and attempts to get back together.

I didn't like Tony. I didn't respect Margrit for continuing to go back to a guy who not only treated her as if she was dishonorable, but very clearly was never going to be able to accept her career choice or who she was as a person. Alban was so very cautious, shy, withdrawn, and retiring that I got bored with his inaction and constant hesitation. I also got tired of Margrit's tendency to react first and think later as well as the ease with which other characters used her hastiness to manipulate her.

I found the first book such a snoozer that I doubt I will even attempt the sequel.

Heart of Stone drones on and on, page after page, with mundane chitchat and redundant hellos, goodbyes, what's for breakfasts?, the play-by-play of a Clue game, and other such trivialities of the boring lives of uninteresting characters. It's a read as compelling as watching a webcam of the reading room of a public library. Clichés (like "the silence was deafening" and "in it for the long haul") litter the prose. The characters, like their names--an abuse victim named Luka, an Italian named Tony, a Puerto Rican named Rita, an Irish woman named Delaney--are themselves clichés. The few characters who aren't completely flat behave ridiculously at every turn. The main character, Margrit (a name straight out of Creative Writing 101), irrationally throws drinks, stone cups, punches, and (if they're lucky) only insults into the faces of innocent men who happen to startle her.

The plot is unimaginative and weak. The two main characters don't even properly meet until halfway through this big book, and nothing significant happens in the meantime--just a couple of almost-meetings and loads of the aforementioned idle chitchat. Margrit is supposed to be some kind of superstar lawyer dedicated to the defense of the downtrodden, but not a single clever thought passes through her brain during the entire story, and she has this unexplained chip on her shoulder so big that she could not likely successfully carry out the duties of her profession. Her abrasiveness is a silly dramatic device to generate trivial conflict in a plot with none significant. The prose is boring and monosyllabic. Any vocabulary word beyond a junior-high reading level is as likely as not misused.

The book lacks any imagination or attention to detail normally present in good fantasy books. It only qualifies as fantasy because a couple of insanely-boring characters happen to be mythical creatures in human disguise. Whatever! Apparently, a fantasy doesn't need to be fantastic, and mythical creatures don't need to behave mythically. In the case of this book, one creature ("being" to use the non-pejorative) wants to avoid eviction for non-payment of rent and the other wants to avoid making a statement in a murder investigation.

Bottom line: This book sucks to its very core by every measure.

I was terrribly excited about this book, because I have enjoyed Murphy's "Walker Papers" series; had my eye on it for months. That, and, Disney's "Gargoyles" was my favorite cartoon show when I was younger. Even today, it's still pretty darn good. While I felt that the writing is very strong and improved from the "Walker" series (one of the things I liked about that series was the author's writing style), I agree with another reviewer that it probably took a little too long to set up the story. This book really did feel like an "introduction" to the trilogy, which means that though it was very enjoyable to read (I got my "Gargoyles" fix alright), I felt there wasn't enough...something. Maybe more action throughout rather than the very end? Also, there were many questions left unanswered, mainly about the characters that are introduced and later disappear from the story. I really didn't want the book to end. Her writing makes up for everything.

So, I'm definitely eagerly anticipating the next two books in the series, because the scene is already set; and with the combination of Murphy's ability to create great atmosphere and characters, and the intriguing story, I'm sure the rest of the trilogy is going to be more exciting indeed.

I'm most fascinated with the way Murphy creates her own fantasy worlds using our own myths and legends, then shaping them and crafting them to fit her stories. Her treatment of gargoyles, for example, follows the archetypes of hunched, brooding guardians, while adding new twists, such as the ability to appear human. (Gargoyles may walk among us...!)

But what makes this story most compelling is the way it is revealed through the eyes of its protagonist, Margrit. Murphy's strength is in letting us identify with a character, then journey with her through new and often frightening paths.

I would highly recommend this for readers who enjoy personal stories of discovery through fantastic yet familiar worlds.

This entertaining book postulates that there are five 'old races' living (hiding) among modern day humans. The heroine of this book becomes entangled in their world and caught between them as they fight amongst themselves and drag humans into the foray.

The characters make sense and are well thought out and developed, not something you see often in this genre. The first third of the book takes a while to get going, I mean, come on, we know that there is a gargoyle living in New York by reading the back of the book! The reveal takes too long, but then the book picks up the pace and it just flies from there. Her writing style is robust without being unnecessarily showy or irritating.

There is much left unresolved by the end of the book- clearly leaving plenty of material for her trilogy- and some of the plot points are resolved as an afterthought, but I enjoyed the book so much I was willing to forgive this.

There is a little bit of sexuality, but I would feel comfortable letting my sheltered little sister read this book.

This author borrows heavily from the animated series 'Gargoyles'- but she does it well and builds upon that mythos and setting nicely.

This is clearly a very well _edited book_. The language is clean, the pacing is steady, and Murphy has gone out of her way to take the "legendary creatures come out of the shadows" genre and bring some originality to the cast of supernatural-but-sexy inhabitants of her universe.

Where the book came a little short of my hopes was in the characterization. Everyone but the main character seemed a little sketchily drawn - even her gargoyle guide to the hidden world.

Overall, this is worth a read - it's light entertainment, but don't expect to be blown away.

From her short stories and Urban Shaman, I knew I could enjoy C. E. Murphy's writing style. Unfortunately, I had to give up on the Urban Shaman series because I was tired of the main character being dragged through the plot despite herself. So when the opportunity came to try Murphy again with a new main character, I took it. I enjoyed Margrit Knight - strong but not quite so badly flawed and ignorant - and her active choices to learn everything far better than Joanne Walker's constant resistance.

Like Urban Shaman, Heart of Stone opens up with a strong and fast overview of our heroine. After one taste of action, the plot then turns to describing every wrinkle around Margrit "Grit" Knight. While this was frustrating at times, I admire Murphy's dedication to building a universe and plot line through the slow trickle of evidence and conjecture rather than a hold-your-nose-and-jump approach that requires another pass by the average reader.

Murphy's initial angle of entry into the urban fantasy portion of the story - gargoyles rather than vampires - was a new one for me to experience. Her final (for this book, anyway) portrait of the five Old Races was inspired without weighing down with too much detail. We still have more to learn, certainly.

I was stuck on a delayed airplane and thereby had the opportunity to read the entire thing in one sitting. I honestly don't know if I would have enjoyed the book as much if I read it in pieces, or if it would have been even more fun being able to ponder what might happen next. I can simply say that I enjoyed it enough to purchase the next book when it is released.