REVIEW: Stone Cold Groom – Pine Ridge Universe – S.C. Principale

Owen Hart’s wits—and his supernatural ability to read others’ emotions—give him an edge at the poker table, but his luck runs out when he gets hauled in to explain his suspicious success to the owner of Spades Casino. Or does it?

Leo Ellis is a successful businessman and criminal who launders money for other mobsters. Owen fascinates him. Sensing there is more to the man than meets the eye, Leo offers him a job as a waiter/sex-optional escort and moves Owen in.

But things get complicated when Leo’s fascination deepens into something else, and then even more so when they fall into bed together.

Having dealt with years of drama and secrecy, Owen feels vulnerable opening up to Leo. The whirlwind romance also puts Leo into a position that he never anticipated. Their emotions are tested further when Leo's most dangerous rival kidnaps Owen to use as a bargaining chip. Will Leo and his men be able to rescue him and keep him safe? Will Leo's second-in-command ever get enough of Owen's cupcakes? With any luck, love may be in the cards at Spades.

Reviewed by Linda Tonis

Member of the Paranormal Romance Guild Review Team

Can’t get enough of Ms. Principale’s stories, they take me away from my everyday humdrum life and into a paranormal realm filled with amazing characters and wonderful adventures.

It is Melinda’s wedding day, and she is getting married in Pine Ridge. Her fiancé Adam is her perfect man, the man she believed to be perfect till he stood her up at the altar. Their honeymoon was to be in Hawaii, but Adam and his best man decided to use the tickets for a man’s get away with no thought of Melinda and her feelings.

Genesis is a gargoyle who left his clan and moved to the States. He makes stone love tokens using the stone he sheds every night. His cousin is getting married to a human, something he is totally against, and he has been asked to make her heartstone, the vows that will bind her to her human husband.

While making the heartstone Genesis imagines being his for his wedding and while pretending to be part of a fountain for the wedding he holds the heartstone to himself. Melinda walks to the fountain and reads the heartstone saying without realizing that she has just married Genesis.

Genesis awakes having heard the end of the vow that Melinda is reading and knows that he is married to a human and he did it while he was asleep. Then Melinda discovers that she is now married to a monster and must be near him or else suffer from severe pain. Now she and Genesis must find a way to end their marriage but so far it seems to be impossible, and no one seems to be able to help. Pine Ridge is filled with supernaturals, vampires, witches, warlocks and none of them can help.

The time they spend trying to end their marriage works in the opposite way as they grow closer. Their story is wonderful and needs to be read rather than discussed in this review. I can say that this is a book that you can’t put down once you start it, well that was the way I felt.

Secrets, surprises and explicit gargoyle/human sex. Some lighthearted moments when Genesis finds himself married while asleep. As a bonus at the end are steamy sneak peeks of other books which I have been fortunate enough to have read and recommend.