Stone Chameleon by Jocelyn Adams
May 24, 2013
Paranormal Romance
MuseItUp

Reviewed by May

From Good Reads:

When a series of unusual murders point to Lou Hudson, Ironhill’s equal rights advocate, as the primary suspect, she has but one choice: find the real perpetrator before her trial begins or face execution.

Lou, the last of the jinn, survives by hiding her abilities after the rest of the elementals fell victim to genocide. As a preternatural pest exterminator and self-proclaimed guardian of the innocent, she’s accustomed to trudging through the dregs of society. Hunting down a pesky murderer should be easy, especially with help from the dashing and mischievous local media darling.

For Lou, though, nothing is ever simple. When she discovers the killer’s identity, to reveal it would unearth her secret and go against her strict moral code, resulting in a deadly catch twenty-two.

This is the first book in a new series from author Jocelyn Adams, told from the heroine Lou’s perspective.

I found the characters in this story interesting, and I thought Lou was a pretty excellent heroine. She works to solve crime and take out the monsters that harm others, but she isn’t hardened and jaded as such heroines often are. Despite hiding such a huge secret, she’s also able to open up and have real friendships which I found to be very refreshing. I also liked how the author showed us the many relationships and strong friendships that she has. So often in UF novels the main character is shown as a loner.

“I’m a woman with standards, Harper. Unlike you, I won’t crawl into bed with any man who offers, no matter how pretty his packaging might be, nor one who dangles a Twinkie in my direction.”

“Hey, no need to be nasty. I have standards, they’re just different from yours. And if it’s his Twinkie he’s dangling in front of me, well…”

The problem with this book largely for me is the romance angle. I really disliked who I assume is the romantic male lead (there is also some odd element of love triangle going on that I didn’t like) and I never really understood why, aside from physical attraction, Lou would be into this guy. The flip from hate to like didn’t make sense to me, in fact I would think she would avoid him more when she comes to understand who he is and what he wants. For someone so perceptive and intelligent I couldn’t understand why Lou would not see who this guy really was sooner.

My other issue was that Lou seems to instinctively know just what to do, and I hate that in a character. It made her boring, her struggles minimized. Instead of trying to learn her Jinn powers, she just knows. She has zero knowledge of their culture or ways, yet she can just wield her power like a trained warrior. How is this? How would she ever figure it out?

Finally, I found Lou’s emotions to be very poorly shown. While I could tell she is the kind of person who would mourn the loss of a friend very deeply, or who would be crushed by a betrayal or other such event she seems to shrug things off and carry on. I would have liked to see a wider range of emotion from her, would have liked to be more in her head for the hard stuff instead of feeling glossed over.

Overall, the writing was interesting and the story kept me intrigued and reading this book quickly. I liked the balance of descriptions to action, detail to pace, and I will definitely pick up book #2. I liked that there was a strong mystery element in this Urban Fantasy book, and I want to join Lou on another adventure and see what she does next. I see that this author has a number of books planned for this series, and I hope that she takes us to new interesting places and does not fall into common UF traps such as a love triangle or having our heroine do stuff “because… reasons!”

While not a cliffhanger, the ending did leave a lot really wide open and I’m not sure I am ready to recommend this as a series. If you are looking to get into UF with a strong but not invincible heroine, and a different take on various types of beings (Jinn, vampires, elves, and a lot more) then you might want to check this out.

Grade: B-

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