Felicity is asked to check out a gargoyle statue by a friend. She finds herself ridiculous drawn to the statue and even dares to break into the museum where it is being displayed in order to look at it with her second sight, certain that there must be some odd about this specific statue. What she doesn't realise is that this decision will bring her to the attention of the noctouris, a group of cultist determined to bring on the end of the world. Fortunately, the gargoyle she was interested in comes to life and because Spar is a protector, he quickly becomes all that stands between her and destruction.

I'm going to say at the outset that I am not necessarily a fan of paranormal romance; however, there were a lot of moving parts to Stone Cold Lover that held my interest. Yes, a major part of this story is to bring together Spar and Felicity; however, it is set against a plot of trying to stop a series of murders in the Montreal area which have stymied the police. Felicity is not trained in magic though she has the ability to sense it. Felicity never shies away from danger and is more than willing to sacrifice herself for her friends. It's an admirable quality in any protagonist to have. Normally in these true love scenarios, relationships between women fall by the wayside to center the romance and I am glad to say that Warren very much avoided that.

Felicity is also very much full of snark and refuses to be controlled. At times, it veers into a bit of Kellie Independence. It has become customary for the female love interest to have a tragic backstory and in this case, Warren steps up to the line and shies away from it. Felicity's mother was a drug addict and that made her unable to raise her daughter and so, Felicity was raised by her grandparents. We learn that her grandparents raised her to be resourceful; however, since the death of her grandparents, Felicity has been on her own in the world. I very much like that while Felicity is bothered by her mother's addiction, she very clearly states that she had a happy childhood. Yeah for female love interest that aren't overly damaged and have had good childhoods.

Things have gotten really bad with the dark side because they managed to get the Wardens on the run and blow up their safe house. This means that the guardians are frozen in stone until someone magical awakes them. We are told that the guild of Wardens is extremely sexist and only trains perhaps one woman out of every 100 trainees. Sexism in a very ancient order makes perfect sense to me and I like that the women in Stone Cold Lover are not shy about critiquing this. My issue is that this line of characterisation for the Guild of Wardens sets up women as temptresses who ultimately distract men from their task. We are told that the original Guardians had stopped caring about humanity and refused to wake until a woman approached one and it heard her call. All nine guardians that were awoken by women eventually quit being Guardians and new ones had to be summoned. Over time, Guardians occasionally give up their immortality to mate with women. The woman as a man stealing Jezebel trope I really could have done without it.

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On her first B&E, the heroine had enough to worry about what with the legal ramifications and all but never did she ever imagine that her life would change so drastically. While in the middle of her break in, she's attacked by an obviously quite insane man in a robe who talks in riddles and shoots strange power bolts from his hands. Then she's saved when the beautiful gargoyle statue comes to life-transforming into a massive and intimating moving gargoyle, complete with wings an all. The man-gargoyle thing roars into action, attacking the man and saving her. But in the chaos, she's wounded by a spell and a bomb detonates the building. The heroine is carried off by the mythical creature to a safe locations. There, she's informed in basic and straight forward delivery that he's an immortal Guardian who's been awoken from his slumber to defend the worlds against the Evil threat that's looking to destroy man kind. Also, that because she's been identified as being present during a guardian awakening, that she's now a target and needs his protection. With the Wardens gone, the men powerfully enough to summon the Guardians and carry the history of how to defeat the evil, the responsibility now lies with the heroine and the woman who have been rejected by the sexiest organization for so long. Honestly, how f'ed up can one girls life get? The heroine uses humor and her sometimes prickly disposition to shield herself from the fear and uncertainly she's feeling in her present circumstance. Especially realizing that she's been cursed and linked to the Evil presence. But whether she likes it or not, she now has her very one immortal guardian-who as it happens can change into a very sexy immortal man. Though she reluctantly accepts the idea that she needs his help, she's very independent and radically against the fact that someone else is dictating what she can do and where she can go. Granted the hero is far from the overbearing alpha male typical to the genre. Yes he's protective, yes he's possessive but he compromises. It's never 'do as I say, woman' kind of attitude but rather ' I just want you safe and cared for' attitude. Never before has he ever felt the way he feels about the heroine. His kind aren't known for human emotions and he is sort of robotic at first. But he gradually becomes more in touch with his new emotions, one of which is love for the woman he's chosen as his mate. But how could it possibly work? A human woman and an immortal man together can only be destined for heartbreak, right? That's how the heroine feels. She resists opening her heart to the man, even if she welcomes him into her bed. Her character was very headstrong, and resistant to her own growing feelings and maybe the hero didn't help matters with just assuming she knew of his own feelings. He was a man of few words and of a charming innocent honesty and he genuinely did everything for the heroine's safety and happiness. He could easily been an asshole and forced her into compliance but he was patient and sympathetic to her need for freedom. I though he really did care for her happiness and it was sweet how he did everything he could to make her happy. They had a very easy relationship yet hard fought at the same time. I think the heroine made things harder on herself at times but still after every fight, the hero would return and they would discuss things like adults. I liked this book because of that fact. I enjoyed the heroine and hero characters both as themselves and also I thought they made a great pair. I can say this was the best of the series so far despite having basically a carbon copy plotline of the others and more than a few grammar mistakes. I'm certainly not saying I'm perfect with my spelling or anything but I figure as an author with proofreaders, there shouldn't be as many errors as there are in this book... Just sayin' ( )