Cover Characteristic: Gargoyles

The Cover Characteristic meme is hosted at  Sugar and Snark.   Here are the guidelines:

Each week we will post a characteristic and choose 5 of our favorite covers with that characteristic. If you want to join in and share your 5 favorite covers with the weeks particular characteristic, then just make a post, grab the meme picture (or make your own) and leave your URL in Linky (so we can visit).
You don’t even need to participate, just stopping by and saying hi would be great! Don’t forget to stop by the other participants!

This week wasn't quite as easy to find in the books I'd actually read.  But I did come up with 5.  Here they are:

  And my favorite, because the book is actually about gargoyles:

So what do you think of my choices?  And hey, while you're here, I've got a couple of giveaways going on for you to check out:

• Any book from the After series by Anna Todd
•  Either The Haunting of Sunshine Girl or The Awakening of Sunshine Girl by Paige McKenzie

 

Review: Stone Cold Touch (The Dark Elements #2) by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Okay, once again prepare for a love fest.  I am hooked now on Jennifer L. Armentrout's books.  Being able to read the first one, White Hot Kiss, and then this 2nd one right after it, is going to make it very hard to wait until the third one, Every Last Breath, comes out this July.  In fact, I kinda wonder if they'll be giving copies of it away, ARCs, at BEA this summer.  If only I could: A. afford to go again this year, and B. not already  have plans for the weekend it is happening this year.  Of course, the first two I picked up as strip cover copies at my bookstore, and since I'll have to buy the 3rd one, guess I'd better start planning to buy the first two so I can have a matching set.  :-)  And of course I'm also even more sad that I was unable to meet her last summer at BEA.  :-(    Enough of my fangirling and moaning, let's get on with the review.  Which if you haven't read the first one, I can't promise no spoilers at all from that story.

Layla is back.  But she's devastated after Roth sacrificed himself to make sure the demon they were trying to send to hell didn't get away, also saving Zayne in the process.  But it meas that Roth was now stuck in hell.  There is one thing Roth left her though, that keeps him close to her at all times.  His familiar, Bambi. The snake is now a tattoo on her body.  And while she and Zayne seem to be getting closer now, Bambi likes to show up as a reminder to him about Roth.  And while things seem to be maybe becoming a possibility that she never dreamed of for her and Zayne, other parts of her life are changing.  For one thing, all of a sudden one day she can no longer see the auras of people with souls.  But she seems to be feeling or sensing other people's feelings when they touch her or get close to her.  That's not all that's going on, it seems there are more upper level demons around town.  And when a surprise shows up, Roth, (you had to know he couldn't be gone!) they learn that a Lilin was created somehow even after all they did to try to prevent that from happening. 

Meanwhile Abbott, Zayne's father, and Layla's adopted father, seems to have been keeping even more secrets from Layla. And he no longer seems to have much trust in her.  To the point where he even thinks she is behind the bad things happening.

Of course it all blows up at the end, when Layla begins to think that just maybe she is at fault for the Lilan, and she hurts someone she never dreamed or wanted to hurt.  She will have to turn to Roth and her friends Stacey and Sam to try to solve all of this and save the world. 

Definitely another bit of a cliffhanger with the end of this one. Although the person who ends up being the Lilan, well I suspected something about them early on that led me to believe there was something else going on with that person.  And while I'm glad that she got to be with Zayne, there is just something about her with Roth that I kinda like better.  And I want to address the whole love triangle thing. With all the talk and hatred about love triangles, I feel I have to point out some things. First, many, many books have them, even older classic ones.  Think about Gone with the Wind, there's Ashley and Rhett.  For movies, how about the original Karate Kid, Daniel and Aly and Johnny.  And again, as fiction, it feels good to have two guys you want, both wanting you.  At least I would think it would be, well in a fictional world.  So I'm okay with it when it's done right. And this book definitely is. 

Okay, I have to hop back on the love train here, I LOVE the Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Supernatural tv show references.  How did I never realize that the reason Dean's car is what it is on the show is partly because the trunk is big enough to hold not one, but TWO dead bodies?  I love it!  I think I could totally hang out and watch these shows with the author and have a great time.  Anyways, enough about that again.  If you haven't read this series, and you enjoy a good paranormal YA story, with great characters and dialogue, then what are you waiting for? Get out and get your copies today!

Review: White Hot Kiss (The Dark Elements #1) by Jennifer L. Armentrout

About a month ago I got a stripped cover copy of the 2nd book in this series from the bookstore where I work.  So I had to go to the library to check out the first book.  And then, wouldn't you know, the first book became a stripped cover at my bookstore, so now I got that, and it was my first read for my romantic themed reads for February.  This is my second book by Armentrout, and I think I'm now completely sold on her writing, and probably need to read every book she writes!  The first one I read was Don't Look Back, and while I loved it for the suspenseful writing, this series I know I love for the awesome characters and the steamy romance!

The main character is Layla.  Layla is half demon, half Warden, and Wardens are what we call gargoyles.  They were sent to us to take care of demons, and have only recently come out and let humans know what they are.  Layla lives with the Wardens.  The problem is that her demon half wants to take souls.  And Wardens have the purest, brightest souls, so she has to be extremely careful around her own family.  One of them, Zayne, who would be like an older brother if she hasn't had a crush on him for so long, seems to only see her as a sister, and even so, it can't be anything more because the temptation to take his soul would be too great for her.  She does have the ability to see everyone's soul auras, and she can tell if they have good souls, or if they are demons even.  And the Wardens let her help out by tagging demons for them. When she touches them, she leaves a mark, and that tells the Wardens who to go hunt.  Saves them a lot of time. 

But something has changed.  The demons seem to be looking for her now, and they attack her.  Right about this same time, a major demon shows up.  Roth, sexy and charismatic, Roth saves her from one demon.  But Layla knows she can't trust him.  After all, the Wardens have raised her to deny her demon side, to help them get rid of demons.  But something about Roth keeps her interest, she can't seem to stop talking to him.  He knows about what it is like for Layla. The things she has to deny.  But he gives her some doubts about the tagging demons. Maybe they're not all as bad and deserving to be sent back to Hell.  And he saves her life many times.  Not to mention the physical attraction that seems to be sparking between them. 

Again I have to just say, WOW, the steaminess of this book, without being ridiculous.  It was perfect.  The cover definitely shows what it will be like.  My only thing that kept me from it, was that I thought the cover did not look like a teen book.  It looks more like an adult romance, the ones that go much farther than steamy, go all the way if you will.  I'd be reading the 2nd book right now, except I make myself read an egalley in between every physical book that I pick up so that I can try to keep on top of those review books.

I am now going to be recommending Jennifer L. Armentrout to everyone.  Can't wait to start sharing!

Redemption (Hearts of Stone #1) by Veronique Launier

First, of course, thanks to Netgalley and Flux books for letting me read an egalley of this book.
I have to say as soon as I figured out from the cover, as well as the description of the book that this was about gargoyles, I was hooked!  I have always been fascinated by gargoyles, from the time my dad used to play the scary gargoyle sounds record to wake me up when I was younger, to even buying books about them and looking for them on buildings when I traveled with my mom.  And, let's face it, a whole new type of paranormal character to write about!  But, of course, there has to be magic, and that comes into the story through witches, who made gargoyles to protect them.  And also, there is magic in this story from the Native Americans of the area it takes place in.  It is in Canada, Montreal to be exact, so that is a little bit of an unfamiliar area to me.  But it works.
The main characters are Guillaume, and Aude.  Guillaume is the gargoyle, who is somehow freed from his stone self even though the witch family who brought him about is long gone.  Aude is the girl who Guillaume and his fellow gargoyles/family are watching be attacked when this all happens.  As it happens, they hear this strange chanting, and drumming.  They are of course intrigued and wonder how this happened, and so Guillaume begins to follow Aude, trying to get to know her and find out how she did this.  Aude, who goes by Odd, lives with her mom, who is a bit of a strange woman, but knows she is, and so her daughter has always dealt with her strange ways.  Aude is a musician, and it turns out, so was Guillaume in the past.  But it wasn't a one time attack on Aude, she continues to get attacked and have strange things happen around her.  Without completely trusting Guillaume, she works with him to try to figure out exactly why these things are happening to her.  She also learns about her past and things about her family she never knew.
I really liked this book.  I like that even though there may be a "connection" almost right away between the 2, they don't just all of a sudden fall in love, and all that.  They work through it.  Aude is attracted, but doesn't know whether to trust this strange guy who appeared out of nowhere when this weird stuff starts happening.  Guillaume is the one who doesn't seem to have feelings, according to his "family" anyway.  So he is sure he is just interested in her to find out what he needs to, in order to stay alive, so he doesn't have to go back to being a stone creature who just watches the world around him go on.  I liked the use of both witches as an ancient power, as well as the Native American "magic" as story lines.  The stone creatures are really good too.  Makes me think of golems.  I'm glad to see this is going to be a series, because while it did end pretty well, it doesn't HAVE to go on, I am eager to follow the story on and see what happens next as Aude learns about her powers and her lineage.
I will be adding this to my A-Z Reading Challenge as well, on the V for the author's first name.