Broken Chains: A Gargoyle Protector Tale

”[H]e’d almost felt like a man again, instead of a monster made of stone. ” I fell this could be so much better than what I experienced reading it. The plot was amazing, with an interesting world building that is realistic-adjacent, but I feel like it fell flat in many ways. I do love the main character, Cat. She’s smart, hopeful, optimistic, open to love; but she’s also a conundrum of naïveté and worldliness that doesn’t mesh for me. She seems to have some things she must learn that don’t pair well with the experiences she’s already had, albeit secondhand, with the man who wakes up and finds himself bound to her. Speaking of man, Tor is a great otherworldly love interest. The wonderful thing about their interest in one another is that it rolls out gradually over the course of the narrative, as readers discover bits and pieces of who he is and why he came to be in Cat’s life. The slow coming together of the pieces of Cat’s life and how her studies benefit Tor and his situation were the main driving factor for me to keep reading the book as quickly as possible, though I didn’t discover nearly as much as I would have liked. The romance for me here was a bit lacking as well. There was attraction, of course, but there was a disconnect between the romance and the attraction. I never equate the two, and it seemed like the line between them were blurred here. For me, that doesn’t feel like romance. A couple of plot holes plagued the story for me as well. No spoilers here, but they had me raising an eyebrow. I had to back and reread a couple of times to make sure I wasn’t mixing things up. They may work themselves out over the course of the next two books in the series, which I will read of course, because I need to know what is going on and why these gargoyles are coming alive. On a positive note, the witty, humorous dialogue kept me entertained immensely. As one of my favorite things about good books, character interaction is key to carrying a story for me. Broken Chains does this quite well. The characters are all fantastic. The side characters enhanced the main story and also provide great incentive to read the next installments for this series. Overall, 3.5 stars out of 5, or a 7 out of 10. It wasn’t a mind-blowing experience, but the characters endeared themselves to me, so I’ll stick with the books and see how this mess plays out. My thanks to the author for the ARC, which I received as a newsletter subscriber of Lana Pecherczyk’s, which I willingly read and for which I give my own opinion.