Review--Heart of Stone by Kelly Keaton

A CHILD FATED TO START A WAR.
A LOVE SHE’LL RISK EVERYTHING TO PROTECT.

Set in New 2, a dangerous and lush alternate New Orleans, the fourth book in Keaton’s Gods & Monsters series, finds the God-killer Ari and Mistborn Sebastian on the hunt for Archer, infant son of Athena, a child fated to bring about the Blood Wars, the ultimate showdown between the gods and the monsters they created, a war that will trap mankind in the middle of a destructive conflict thousands of years in the making.

As Ari and Sebastian attempt to rescue the child, forces pull them apart, sending Sebastian on a perilous journey to the desert sands of Egypt and into the lair of a dark, enthralling entity, and Ari to the Halls of Olympus and, darker still, the very heart of the Underworld where Death awaits with a bargain that brings Ari’s worst nightmares into sharp and heart wrenching focus…

I finally read Kelly Keaton's Heart of Stone, the book she self-published and added to her Gods and Monsters series. It's the last book in the series, but alas, it wasn't the finale. There were some loose ends at the end of this one...things that went unresolved and it left me feeling a little jaded. The lack of finale, not so much the book itself.

It has been way too long since I read the third book of this series, but I went into this one anyway. While I could recall somethings about the series, characters and connections, there was still a lot I had forgotten. Luckily, Kelly does a bit of a recap here and there to bring up the important parts.

Ari and Sebastian are getting used to what feels like a normal life, as normal as it can be for them given that she used to be a Gorgon, but still maintains the better part of her powers, and Sebastian is a Mistborn or vampire, if you will. They know the fated Blood Wars are coming sometime in the future, but until that day, they just live life at the fullest. 

They were awaiting the arrival of Baby Archer who would spend half the year with them and the other half with his godly relatives on Olympus. But the day he should arrive, Apollo comes empty-handed and coming down with some sort of sickness.

Now it's up to Ari and Sebastian to try to find out where Archer is being held. Sebastian will go to Egypt to find Horus and Artemis and get their help while Ari is going up to Olympus to look for clues or answers. But of course they both find trouble in their respective journeys. 

This was a rather fun book, and that's me saying this without having remembered much at all of books 1-3! It was exciting and things were being laid out for what I believed was to be the Blood Wars...but yet, they never happened. Not in this book. I wondered if Kelly had plans to write another installment but then just didn't. I read this book 5 years after it released, the publisher published their last one in 2013...it would seem everyone is done with this series and yet there was still a lot more that was meant to happen.

This book was intense! As any books dealing with gods and goddesses would be. The action was more suspenseful than the battling sort, though there were some mini ones here and there. But the biggest draw of this book were all the little things were learning about what was to come from this supposed war. There were all these little things being laid out, like an enemy who was only around so briefly, a huge revelation concerning Sebastian. Everything was just whoa! And with the way this one ended, HOLY COW!

Needless to say that this was a most exciting read. I was devastated by its ending though...only because this was the end. And there were too many things left unanswered. Too many mini cliffhangers left hanging for all eternity. Yes, it's dramatic, but omg why did no one tell me this one was going to end in tragic ways?! Tragic being there are cliffhangers that will never be answered. I wonder if things would've been better had I said things ended at book 3. I can't really remember that one well, but from what I learned at the beginning of this one...it would've been better. This installment almost felt like a cruel joke. Like here's more to read...until there's not!

If you enjoy Greek mythology, I would highly recommend checking this older series out! Heart of Stone was quite fun and Ari was a lovable heroine. Though, I guess I'd recommend maybe skipping this installment unless you don't mind the torture of unfinished series. Had I know this, I might have skipped this installment in the end.



Overall Rating 3.5/5 stars