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A review by rosepetals1984
The Stone Demon by Karen Mahoney
3.0
Karen Mahoney's "The Stone Demon" is the third and final book to "The Iron Witch" trilogy, and I think its content is more on the level with the first, though with a few caveats to consider. I appreciated the journey with the familiar characters and imaginative settings, with nods to fae lore. It started off a little rough in the beginning with pacing, but as the novel went on, it improved with the stakes and immersion since there were multiple players in the story tasked with doing different things and having very different motivations to keep the ball rolling.
When we last left Donna in the previous story, she had woken the Demon King, Demian. Demian is positively evil, but charming I'll admit in some of the encounters Donna has with him. He demands that Donna and the alchemists forge him a Philosopher's Stone on a timetable, else he would overrun the human world to his own ends. This makes Donna, her mother and the alchemists, Navin, and Xan all come together to get to the task at hand, though with some rough encounters in the between.
I thought this story was a nice rounding out of the series on an overarching note. I think the biggest caveat was that towards the beginning, it got a little bogged down in the details of depicting the motivations of the stone, and toward the end, it went a little too quickly with the rolling action scenes, if those particular pacing and focal points had been switched, I think I would've liked it more for development and immersion. But I enjoyed the journey very much, and I certainly won't hesitate to read more of Mahoney's work in the future.
Certainly recommended to those who like fae stories with magic, romance and bit humor.
Overall score: 3/5
Note: I received this as an ARC from NetGalley, from the publisher Flux.
When we last left Donna in the previous story, she had woken the Demon King, Demian. Demian is positively evil, but charming I'll admit in some of the encounters Donna has with him. He demands that Donna and the alchemists forge him a Philosopher's Stone on a timetable, else he would overrun the human world to his own ends. This makes Donna, her mother and the alchemists, Navin, and Xan all come together to get to the task at hand, though with some rough encounters in the between.
I thought this story was a nice rounding out of the series on an overarching note. I think the biggest caveat was that towards the beginning, it got a little bogged down in the details of depicting the motivations of the stone, and toward the end, it went a little too quickly with the rolling action scenes, if those particular pacing and focal points had been switched, I think I would've liked it more for development and immersion. But I enjoyed the journey very much, and I certainly won't hesitate to read more of Mahoney's work in the future.
Certainly recommended to those who like fae stories with magic, romance and bit humor.
Overall score: 3/5
Note: I received this as an ARC from NetGalley, from the publisher Flux.