THE STONE'S RELEASE

Author: Kerry A. Jones ISBN: 9781934912089 10/2008 PARANORMAL Publisher: BLACK LYON PUBLISHING

Seven centuries fell aside with her summons. “Where are you?” With the woman’s three elusive, filmy words, Lord Stefan Ashworth is broken free from a centuries-old punishment. Cursed with the rest of an elite medieval army called the Quinguard, the gypsy king and healer has been turned to stone by night—a fate he did nothing to earn. Traveling from an Italian cathedral on the Mediterranean around the world to find the source of the woman’s voice, Ash is set to discover the truest meaning of gypsy magic. But was he her soulmate—or a trick of the ritual? Physicist Bailey Valo has always lived on the fine fringes where science and religion meet. Torn with grief over the disappearance of her twin sister and her own role in the possible death of her sister’s lover, she turns to a solution she might never have considered before. A spell. A ritual. A cry from her heart. And when a golden-eyed god of a man appears on her doorstep in the middle of nowhere, dreams and myth are about to become her reality.

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

Kerry Jones sets her paranormal romance, THE STONE'S RELEASE, (second of the Quinguard Immortals series) in present day eastern Oregon where Bailey Valo, physicist and worried twin sister, lives on a corner of her parents' cattle ranch. Her twin sister Sabrina and the married man Sabrina loves are missing, and Bailey is afraid that she has accidentally caused their disappearance by constructing a love spell for them. Instead, the spell she cast has brought forth a British lord, Stefan Ashworth (known to friends as Ash), who has been caught in a 700 year-old curse whereby each sunset his molecules shimmer apart, and he is cast into a stone statue and thrown onto a perch high above the congregation in a cathedral in a small hill town on the Mediterranean Sea. The stone releases him each morning to live and breathe as a man, and he has accumulated vast wealth while being very generous to his town. When Bailey calls him forth, he is temporarily released from the stone and he searches for nine months until he finds the woman who cries out for him in her sleep. He was a member of an elite group of five fighting men (a captain, healer, seer, weapon maker and warrior) known as a quinguard that was formed by Edward I of England to right wrongs and go on secret missions for their king. On their last mission, they were ambushed at a convent in some remote hills, captured and ensnared by a group of lesser lords seeking immortality. One of these lesser lords has remained near each of the quinguard for these last 700 years making sure they stay ensnared in stone, thus ensuring their own immortality. When Bailey finds out what she'll need to do in order to remove Ash's curse permanently, will she be willing?

Jones creates a world of people, places and possibilities that can be endless, and the story lives where Bailey tells Ash that she likes to be on the fringe where science and spirituality meet. Each of the characters is multi-layered and feel real without endless repetitions of their fears and foibles. There is just the right chemistry between Ash and Bailey, and his curse creates an interesting twist to their love-making that stretches out their intimacy without turning the scenes into tantric gymnastics. The secondary characters also resonated with me and they each are their own person, wholly different from the others. By telling part of the story in the present and dipping into the 700 years of backstory, there will be a lot to explore in future novels.

Jones has a clean, well-crafted style that flows seamlessly from dialogue to narration to description, and the action never lags. I really hate starting a series beyond the first book, but in a test of truly good writing,THE STONE'S RELEASE stands well on its own (but I'm definitely going to buy the first book, CAST IN STONE, to get caught up). I love how she effortlessly combines the familiar with a fresh angle on immortality. Readers who enjoy Highlander-style stories will appreciate this as well as contemporary romance readers. I can't wait for the next book in this series.

Susan Barton