Ratings3
Average rating4.7
The first novel in the Heart of Stone Series, Crash Into Me is a billionaire romance and a USA Today bestseller! Begin the series and see why readers LOVE Tristan and Nina’s story! What would you give up for everything? Tristan Stone was powerful, commanding, sex incarnate. And he wore it all so well. From the moment his mesmerizing gaze met mine, I had no choice but surrender to everything he was. His power. His decadence. His passion. He was all I never knew I needed. He wanted to possess me, and I wanted to be his everything. All I had to do was accept what he offered. But everything has a price. The world he gave me fulfilled my wildest dreams, but would that be enough when the past crashed into the present? Topics: billionaire hero romance, possessive hero romance, family life romance, wealthy hero, contemporary romance, erotic romance, New York City, series, billionaire romance, New York Times bestseller, USA Today bestseller, K.M. Scott, top books in romance, top books in contemporary romance, top books in billionaire romance, family saga romance, romantic suspense books, new adult romance series, bingeworthy romance series, must read romance, free romance books, free romance novels, free romance, contemporary romance free, contemporary romance books, free, freebie, romance free, romance series, new adult romance, romantic suspense, beach reads, romance novels free, romance books, alpha male Perfect for fans of Helen Hardt, Meghan March, Kendall Ryan, Anna Zaires, J. Kenner, CD Reiss, Lauren Blakely, Skye Warren, Aleatha Romig, Lisa Renee Jones, Penelope Sky, E.L. James, Vi Keeland, Stella Gray, Penelope Ward, Meredith Wild, Chelle Bliss, Charlotte Byrd, Laurelin Paige, Jodi Ellen Malpas, Sylvia Day, Maya Banks, Louise Bay, Shayla Black, Natasha Knight, Carly Phillips, Erika Wilde, Amelia Wilde, Marie Force, M. Malone Look for all the Heart of Stone series books! Crash Into Me (Heart of Stone #1) Fall Into Me (Heart of Stone #2) Give In To Me (Heart of Stone #3) Heart of Stone Volume One Box Set Ever After (Heart of Stone #4) A Heart of Stone Christmas (Heart of Stone #5) Return To Me (Heart of Stone #6) Forever With Me (Heart of Stone #7) Heart of Stone Volume Two Box Set Hard As Stone (Heart of Stone #8) Set In Stone (Heart of Stone #9) Silent As A Stone (Heart of Stone #10) All of Me (Heart of Stone #11)
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2 primary books3 released booksHeart of Stone is a 3-book series with 4 primary works first released in 2013 with contributions by Demelza Carlton, K.M. Scott, and Kelly Apple.
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this was My first book by this Author. something different for me, a lot like 50 shades but sweeter
Non-human protagonists are always tricky. How do you make them relatable and still fundamentally alien? Too much of one without the other makes the intended effect fall flat.
Enter Task, a wind-carved stone golem who spends the centuries turning the tides of war for the highest bidder. He's been magically compelled to follow the orders of a parade of violent warlords, and the whole experience has left him rather jaded. And yet, Ben Galley manages to make Task a lovably terrifying creature and an absolute joy to read about.
The real strength of Heart of Stone is the characters. Aside from Task, there are two other main POV characters: Lesky, a young girl who shows no fear of Task; and Alabaster, the legendary knight who slew the last dragon. If there's one thing that shines above the rest of this story, it's the friendship between Task and Lesky. It's a beautifully heartwarming presence in an otherwise dark story.
There's a lot of plot packed into a relatively small page count. Hartlund has been plagued by civil war for nine years, with one side supporting the boy King and the other rebelling against tyrannical leadership. Both sides are depicted in shades of gray, with neither being definitively in the right. One side purchases Task at the beginning of the novel in an effort to bring things to a bloody end.
Hartlund was an interesting setting to explore. Most forms of animal life are magical parallels to real-world creatures. For example, imagine a stray cat, but replace the fur with scales and make their claws a lot scarier. The magic was intriguing, as well, with most of it relying on getting into people's heads to communicate or enslave.
To me, the war served as a backdrop for Task's character development, which was the true heart of the story. Task was caught between the violence of war under a commander he can't disobey and the love of an innocent child. These two things drive Task's arc and thus, the story. As such, I occasionally lost interest in the battles when the stakes escalated beyond the personal level. It felt a bit rushed, with a plot-driven climax tacked onto the end of a character-driven novel. That said, this was minor criticism in a compelling story that I loved from start to finish.
Overall, this was an excellent read. The few issues I had with the story were far outweighed by my inability to put the book down. For those of you who enjoy audiobooks, Adam Stubbs is a relatively-unknown narrator who is absolutely phenomenal. Just wait until you hear his golem voice for Task.