In the first book of the Stoneheart trilogy, Stoneheart, young George Chapman breaks the head off a small statue in a fit of rage and found himself in an 'unLondon' (As the 'The Story so Far' puts it) where statues can come to life. George was able to break the statue with his hand instead of breaking his hand with the statue because he is a maker -- George inherited his late father's talent at sculpting.

The London statues come in two types. The human-shaped ones are known as 'spits' because they are the 'spit and image' (original form of 'spitting image') of humans. The ones shaped like animals or monsters or mythological creatures are called 'taints'. The sphinxes, being lions with women's heads, are a combination. Abstract statues of humans, such as the Grid Man, are taints. As we learn in chapter 37, they're called 'taints' because wherever their shadows fall, the children of light feel the taint of fear from the evil that happened the first time. (Should I bring up tiny 'spits' such as the Venus of Willendorf, which is estimated to be -- at the very least -- 25,000 years old?). It's an ugly origin story.

Taints started attacking George, but he was saved by the Gunner, a bronze World War I soldier, They were joined by Edie Laemmel, a girl who is a glint (women and girls able to see visions of the past by touching stone or metal). The Gunner had thought that glints were dying out naturally. In chapter five we learn why glints are so rare these days. It's a reason that's as ugly as the origin of taints..

The villainous Walker, one of the 'weirded' (cursed men), considers George and Edie his rightful prey. As this book opens, the children no longer have the Gunner to protect them because the Gunner went back on the maker's oath that the Walker made him give. He did it to save Edie. Now the Walker has the Gunner trapped. If the Gunner isn't back on his plinth by midnight, he'll join the dead statues of London.

George decided to make amends the hard way in the first book because he didn't want to desert Edie. He finds out that the hard way was a bit more literal than he expected in chapter six. Two of the duels he must fight will take place in this book and the third in .

We get to see Spout, the cat-headed gargoyle that was supposedly destroyed in the first book. He has an even more interesting role in this one.

We meet the Black Friar and Little Tragedy again, and other spits and taints of London are introduced. I particularly liked the Red Queen, which has nothing to do with Alice's Red Queen from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There. Icarus may be a taint, but I feel rather sorry for him anyway. As far as the Walker is concerned, I think he deserved what he got. As for Ariel, who is a Minister of Fate, I cry foul because she didn't make sure George understood what was being asked of him by the Last Knight, as well as not giving him a chance to get a weapon. I am not sorry about the outcome of her dealings with George.

Of course there is a way to save the Gunner, but it's not for the faint of heart. I'm sure I wouldn't have had the courage to pull it off.

NOTES:

Chapter 7: "When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?" is a famous quotation by a priest named John Ball, one of the leaders in England's Peasant Revolt in 1381. (He'd already been excommunicated for wanting a classless society.) As his saying rightly points out, there were no upper classes, aristocracy, or royalty during the time of Adam and Eve.

Chapter 17:

a. I believe that Ariel is complaining about the statue of Peter Pan that is in Kensington Gardens. The author of Peter Pan also wrote Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens.

b. 'Send not to know for whom the bell tolls, boy, it tolls for thee.' If 'boy' were left out and 'Therefore' were put at the beginning of the sentence, Ariel would be quoting the last sentence of John Donne's famous poem, 'For Whom the Bell Tolls'. Good one, Mr. Fletcher!

c. The King Edgar mentioned in the inscription for the Last Knight of the Gnihtengild (ke-nik-ten-gild) was known as Edgar the Peaceful.

Chapter 34:

a. 'Wurzel' is being used in the farmers from Southhampton who speak with a strong West Country dialect.

b. A 'Geordie' is someone from '...Tyneside area of North East England'.

So much peril to be escaped, so much suspense to be endured! There's the Frost Fair from the first book now seen from the other side of the girl being chased by the Walker, a brief stint during the Blitz in World War II, and a longer, gruesome scene set during World War I that should have left George with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (or 'shell shock" as it was known then).

This is definitely an adventure to savor! ( )

A little on the simple side ( )

Squee!!! Getting the next book RIGHT NOW. ( )

Goes at quite a pace and packs in two world wars! Pleased that this time there are (strong-minded) women statues - not very many in London which makes this a bit of a challenge for the author I admit - and the characters are more complicated, although a tad annoyed that the BL continues to be a "bad" place. ( )

George and Edie have to work together and separately against the Walker who appears to be set against them. It's interesting to see the different statues taking sides in the fight and how George has to face up to several fears. Still it's a bridging novel and it's largely setting up what happens in the final novel in the trilogy. ( )