Shannon C.‘s review of Stone of Cruento by Charlene Leatherman
Fantasy romance eBook published by Cerridwen Press 1 May 08

There are good books, books so wonderful I finish them with a sigh and relax into my happy place of reader bliss, books so great I want to visit the world the author has created again and again.

Sadly, Stone of Cruento is not one of these books. In fact, when I was done the only reason I reached my happy place at all was because I was relieved the book was over. Therefore, if you happen to be Charlene Leatherman, a fangirl, friend, or sockpuppet, I would advise either not reading this review or doing so with lots of fortifying booze. Also, if you want to read further, be cautioned that there are spoilers. I try to avoid spoilers, but in this case, I really can’t.

Now that I’ve stuck the disclaimer on top of this review, let me just be blunt. I hated this book. Nothing worked for me–not the characters, not the plot, not the writing style itself, and let’s forget about the romance.

The plot is a great big mess. We meet our plucky, strong-willed, resourceful and probably beautiful heroine, half-vampire Claren, who basically acts as a one-woman neighborhood watch. She lives with her best friend Tina who largely exists to provide moral support and then disappears conveniently from Claren’s thoughts for large chunks of the story, and Belgretor, an ogre who rescued her shortly after she became a vampire. Anyway, Claren can’t control the vampiric lust, so she ends up snacking on an inconvenient number of humans and comes under the attention of the vampire king, who wants a favor done. All she has to do is give the vampire king a stone trapped on an alien world and he says he’ll leave her alone. But soon Claren is embroiled in a conflict on the alien world of Cruento, along with the vampire’s viceroy, the sinfully sexy Daniel, her ogre friend and protector, and a centaur whom she ends up marrying.

Yes, kids, you read that right. Claren has not one, not even two, but three love interests. I also fully admit that the whole three men, one woman dynamic is why I requested the book for review in the first place, so, really, I have only myself to blame that it didn’t work out.

Claren herself is probably the most well-developed character of the four, so it’s rather a shame that she’s a Mary Sue. And she develops superpowers at an alarming rate throughout the course of the book. I never particularly felt that there was any conflict with her character, and she seemed entirely capable of beating down the forces of evil without breaking a sweat.

As for her men, they’re archetypes. There’s the young, hotheaded one, the beautifully arrogant sexy one, and the big dumb sweet lummox who inevitably gets smart as the book progresses. Other than that, I felt there wasn’t enough about any of them to make me identify with them, or, for that matter to find any of them particularly hot, so the romance never connected. Also, and here is where that spoiler comes in, one of them dies. He doesn’t even get a heroic death–it’s rather ignominious in fact, but it is something to keep in mind should you be wondering how the menage a quatre thing gets resolved.

The other thing about the romance that bugged me is that there weren’t really enough sex scenes that didn’t take place inside of dreams. Dream sex and weird voyeur sex is all we get, and since all of it was rather mystical, it didn’t work for me.

The plot is rather disjointed too. It feels episodic, which mostly I don’t mind, except that in this case I felt that events didn’t flow well from one to another. Also, certain key scenes were not given enough detail while we agonize for pages about other events.

The other thing I noticed was the writing style. Every sentence felt the same. They were short. They were choppy. There was a distinct feel of “Claren did this. Then Daniel did that. Then Belgretor did the other thing.” I would have killed for some more variety, even some additional punctuation, not to mention a few dependent clauses. I don’t know if this is the sort of thing, though, that most readers would notice. I was listening to the book on one of my gadgets, which reads the book with synthesized speech, so the choppiness of the writing was really noticeable and I kept hoping someone would take the author aside and tell her the advice every English teacher has given me since high school–read your stuff aloud. You might be able to solve that problem.

With characters I actively disliked, a plot that was, quite frankly, a mess, a romance I didn’t buy at all, and some stylistic issues, I’m afraid I can’t find anything to recommend about this book.

Grade: F

Summary:

Claren Maxwell felt she was misplaced, like she belonged somewhere else. Even as a vampire she was not like the others. Claren didn’t like to kill. She avoided intimacy with human men. It was too dangerous. Claren wanted to fit in. She wanted to be loved and protected. So she dreamed, but the dreams were becoming too real. She dreamt of three men. In real life she would have to choose one, right?

The three men in her dreams materialize. Belgretor, a giant of a man from Cruento, protects her. Daniel is a vampire from Earth who desires her. Jamros is a centaur from Cruento who is drawn to her by destiny. Together the four of them must find a way to stop the destruction of Earth and Cruento.

Can Claren choose between the three men she loves while saving the worlds she inadvertently put in jeopardy?

Reader Advisory: Set in the same world as Prophecy of Vithan, Stone of Cruento contains graphic sex that includes ménages à trois.

You can read an excerpt here.