Carved in Stone
Vickie Taylor
Berkley, Jun 2005, $6.99, 336 pp.
ISBN: 0425202917

After being reborn fourteen times, Nathan Cross no longer wants a next life so he refuses to get a human pregnant. The Gargoyle has also left his group that has for centuries protected humans from evil, but are no longer needed. His only solace is in art as he counts down his last lifetime.

At a gala at the Chicago Museum of Fine Arts, Nathan is attracted to Rachel Vandermere, who uncannily focuses in on him. She introduces herself to him, but he flees the scene. Rachel sensed he was different and working undercover to catch a serial killer that targeted him. She later learns that Nathan is an art history professor at Chicago University. As they keep crossing paths, the cop and the professor begin to fall in love, but he fears how she will react to his bloodline while she holds back that she can see otherworldly things including the beast that killed her parents when she was a frightened child.

This police procedural fantasy romance will hook the audience from the onset and never slows down until the final twist that will surprise most of the readers. The story line is action-packed but insures that the lead couple is fully developed and that the support cast makes Gargoyles and other creatures seem like genuine races. Vickie Taylor owes her fans at least two more Gargoyle tales as she joins Jim Butcher in making Chicago a center for weirdness.

Harriet Klausner