A Gargoyle's Delight

A Monster’s Duet Standalone

By: Naomi Lucas, Mel Braxton

Narrated by: Cassandra Myles, John Masterson

Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's summary

For centuries I have suffered.

Solidified and silenced, all because I failed to destroy what I was created for.

Except now, after so long… There is a female. One who always seems to be by my side. Day after day. Night after night.

She talks to me. Touches me. Tells me things. She shares stories of a world I no longer know. She is a reprieve from my punishment. A sweet delight. She liberates me from my solitude.

But when I rise, my adversary seizes his opportunity, and she's caught between us. He only wants her to get to me.

She isn't his. And I'll do anything to protect what's mine.

©2023 Naomi Lucas and Mel Braxton (P)2023 Podium Audio

Strange Gargoyle!

The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: 💙💚💜❤️
Steam: 🔥🔥🔥
Story/Plot: 📕📗📙
World building: 🌏🌍🌎
Character development: 😟🙁☺️🤓
Narration: 🎙🎙🎙
Narration Type: Dual Narration

The heroine: Summer - she is a tour guide at Hopkins Museum of the Strange. The museum is a tourist trap that has things like a dragon’s tooth, jars with animals like the cerberus rat and fairy carcasses, haunted dolls, and a giant stone gargoyle statue. The gargoyle statue stands behind the customer service desk and welcome’s everyone to the museum. It seems to get bigger at times when the shadows are just right. Summer knows the entire back story of the gargoyle’s mysterious history. His silent non-judgmental companionship is the best Summer has had since she returned to her hometown.

The Story: The gargoyle predates the Middle Ages. His history is that nobody knows who sculpted him before he was in the possession of John Motismo, a magician and supposed warlock. He found fame in the early 60s. John Motismo included the gargoyle in his show, in the finale, he would bring the statue to life. At one point John Motismo went crazy and pooped blood over the statue saying he needed to free it.

One day after Summer closes up for the night, she pats the gargoyle statue as she talks to it, when she feels a sharp pain and sees that she has cut her hand on the statue. When she looks at her hand later, the cut is mysteriously gone. Later that night at home, she has an erotic dream about a cold stone phallus, but when she opens her eyes, nothing is there. She hears someone speaking to her and can’t understand what is going on. She tries to warm up the phallus with her mouth and opens her eyes to find the museums gargoyle is in her bed. Though he is gone when she wakes up.

The Hero: Zuriel - he is nearly a foot and a half taller than Summer and twice her size. He has been solidified for centuries since he failed to do what he was created for, vanquishing demons. He has been standing guard not really sentient until Summer came to work at Hopkins. All his previous owners have been evil men who wanted his power but needed to know his name. When he finally wakes, he sees Summer as his owner and knows that the demon Adriel is close.

This book was a strange one. Since Zuriel all the sudden had a package when he never had one before, he wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. From my point of view, it was downright silly and unnecessary, not really funny as it tried to be. Though when all that got finished, the story wasn’t bad. I did like the characters and the storyline about Adriel needing to get Zuriel’s name in order to get his power.

This audiobook was told in dual points of view via Dual narration. It was narrated by Cassandra Miles and John Masterson. Cassandra has a voice that sounds like she is a small person. I am not really sure what I mean by that, but it is a sort of childish voice in a way. I had to check to verify I didn’t accidentally increase the speed on my audiobook. She is good at doing other voices though. John Masterson had s fro voice and speaks in a broken tempo which works well for a Hero just coming out of his stone prison.

Don't come looking for a Gargoyles fanfic.

I didn't but it seems the other reviewers did. Also be aware of the smut I guess? Kinda weird one reviewer didn't know what they were getting into with the monster lover genre.

I do have to agree with others that the second half was much better than the first. I took multiple breaks during the first part but once the second half started I was hooked..

I thought I had guessed the ending and was rather disappointed at the mundane turn I thought it was taking but I was delightfully suprised at the ending we got. I want to see more of them like that!!

I don't like female narrators and I especially hate dual narration but I enjoyed this one enough; They both did a good job.

Can't wait to listen to the next one! <3

Interesting story

This is an interesting premise and could have been an amazing audiobook. The narrators do a great job with the characters they were supposed to voice.

Biggest problem I have with the story is that the FMC acts so stoopid too many times. Don't go out at night? She runs outside. Don't say my name? She says it often. She eventually gets better, but I would appreciate authors to give FMC some common sense and intelligence, especially if she is smart enough to have a Master's.
Second issue is if there is a dual narration, please make it a true dual narration. Hearing the female VA speaking the MMC voice, and the male VA reading the FMC voice is so odd and distracting.

If you can overlook those issues, then I would recommend this book. I'm curious about the second book in this series, partly because I apparently cannot keep my curiosity at bay.

Funny

Storyline was interesting and unique. Narrators did a great job with characters; just love John’s voice, he was so funny. Offered a good mix of drama, horror, romance, and humor. Hope the next book in series is this good!

Filthy!!!!

This author is amazing and I love all of her work. This one hit the spot as I have always loved gargoyles. If you love the cartoon gargoyles growing up you will absolutely love this book!!

Nothing like the cartoon Gargoyles

It was marketed on tik tok as a spicy Gargoyles-esque fic, like the 90’s cartoon Gargoyles, which would have been awesome! BUT it’s just a trashy porn book - and not even a good one. Don’t get me wrong, I like a good spicy book. I loved the review of this book and was VERY excited to read it, I even pre-ordered it! Imagine my surprise when by the first chapter the FL is found to be a whiny, sniveling loser living with her parents who gets raped by the controlling and lame ML in her dream. Like, wtf. It starts off trashy and ends trashy. This book was written by what seems to be a femcel and incel, both of whom have never had sex before, let alone even been able to stutter out a sentence to the opposite sex in real life. None of the sex scenes are provocative, instead the descriptions made me physically gag and repulsed me. Many of them also had me worried about BV, but what kind of virgins would understand the dangers of raw anal to vaginal sex? It’s the kinda trash I wrote at 13 when I was a virgin hiding under my bed and scared my parents would find it. Worse, the characters are lame af losers who have zero dimension and they start and stay that way through the whole book. The plot is stupid and secondary to the poorly written and executed sex scenes. This is NOTHING like Gargoyles, the 90’s cartoon. The only similarity is the use of the Gargoyle monster. I am so angry I listened to the good review of this and wasted my money on this book. I’m also angry this trash is being associated with one of my fav childhood cartoons. Stop comparing this garbage to Gargoyles. Gargoyles had a badass FL and the ML was also a badass and together they banded up with others to take down a common enemy and built up mutual respect and attraction. That’s where I thought this would go based on the review. But nope. Just trashy femcel/incel bullshit. I’d give this zero stars if I could.