Great book! It pulled me in from beginning to end and held my attention. The world building is detailed and imaginative. This book has strong, well-developed characters and an interesting story line that keeps you turning the pages. I recommend this book and would read more books by this author. Enjoyable and worth the time. I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.

I am a sucker for a good Djinn story, however i felt this lacked something espesially around the fact that everything went extremely quickly; Jered & Leela`s relationship for one and Achan revealing himself. But i did like the story and the characters: Leela was sassy & Jered kind. I look forward to the next book.

I received this book for free for an honest review from netgalley # netgalley

So sexy and adventurous! Love the setting

This was not good. It wasn't abysmally awful, but it was not good. The writing is really quite juvenile and hollow. It's hard to care about the characters, and the plot is contrived and stilted. It really feels almost middle-grade until literally the last few pages where there is a really crappy sex scene. A lot of the positive reviews for this are other authors from the same publisher which is not entirely surprising.

The Binding Stone (The Djinn, Book 1) by Lizzy Gayle
ARC proved by City Owl Press
Publication Date: October 5, 2021
Genre: General Fiction (Adult), Romance, Sci Fi & Fantasy

The Binding Stone is the first book in the new The Djinn series by Lizzy Gayle. This is a fun paranormal read about the first Djinni.

I always love a book with a strong female lead and this one has fits that bill! Leela has survived so much over her (very long) life and keeps on fighting for what is right (and she hopes, for her freedom one day).

This book has a fun story with lots of twists and turns. I really liked the characters and thought they were well written.

I look forward to seeing what will happen in the next book. I'm hoping the quick peak we got at the end of the book means we'll see it soon!
I'm so grateful to Lizzy Gayle, City Owl Press, and NetGalley for providing me with a free copy of this ARC ebook in exchange for my honest review.

This was a different sort of romance story for me. There was suffering and not good people Then Jered comes into the story who has Leela but is not sure what to do with Her. And Leela wondering if she can trust Jered. At times I felt a little confused it seemed stuff was added that didn’t need to be. This is book 1 in The Djinn Series which this book leads you into the second to learn more.
This story has a few Triggers abuse and sexual abuse.
Thank You NetGalley for letting me read this for my honest review

Thank you NetGalley for an advanced copy. I only read this book because I love Djinn stories, but this isn't the typical genie in a bottle story. It does not follow the typical make-a-wish tale and does not feature anything similar to Arabian culture, contrary to the cover picture. The plot development takes many twists and turns, and I found myself unable to put the story down. There are triggers of abuse, sexual abuse, and torture, so reader beware. The theme of power versus being able to do good is a nice discussion topic. There is too much explicit romance throughout, so I'm not able to recommend it to our school library.

This book is pretty good, though more on the YA side. Definitely limited on the spice. The pacing was decent and the story and character development was pretty good too. There was only like 1, maybe 2, things that didn’t seem to make much sense to me but aside from that, I enjoyed this.

I'm always on the lookout for paranormal/fantasy romances that have different creatures than the typical fae, vampire or werewolf. So when I saw this has a Djinn in it I was intrigued,
Unfortunately this fell a little flat for my tastes. I think this should be marketed as more fantasy/urban fantasy fiction than romance. The romance developed at random paces and seemed really forced.
I think the pacing was all over the place and the ending was rushed.
I think the story needed to be longer to give the characters time to breathe and develop.

I've never read a book with a Djinn. This was pretty darn good. I had a great time and devoured this in two days. Its just so unique. I loved it.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Actual Rating = 2.5

The Binding Stone is a fantasy romance about Leena, a djinn who gets woken up in modern-day Chicago. Our other MC, Jered, is such a good dude he gives boy scouts a run for their money - I suspect the author has a crush.

Y'all, this was honestly better than I thought it would be. I've been reading a lot of pretty dense texts lately so when I saw this ARC I thought, why not? It seemed like fun, pop fiction and that's exactly what it was. I've not read a lot of urban fantasy about djinn, so that was cool also.

I was drawn to this book by the front cover and the premise of the story and so I didnt know what to expect and it didnt disappoint. It was a really enjoyable read with great imagery a rich setting and likeable characters

Ok anyone who has ever read my reviews probably knows that I'm always on the lookout for books about Djinn so obviously was keen to read this when I spotted it. Leela is the Djinn in question and she has had the most traumatic life since she became enslaved to a Magician thousands of years ago. Now she's woken up to find the ring that links to her has been bought in a yard sale by a young man who clearly has absolutely no idea what to do with her ! Jered just wants to finish college and honestly he's just a nice guy whose first wish is world peace which sadly is a tad out of Leelas reach. Still Jered doesn't want to use or abuse Leela although I have to point out that he really needs to think before he speaks sometimes. It's just too bad that Leelas past is a lot closer than she realises and it's about to come back with a vengeance with calamitous results !
There is a lot that I liked here although I should point out that there is a lot of suffering here and truly vile characters in this story. I've already stated that Jered is what I guess you could describe as a thoroughly good egg although perhaps a wee bit naive. From the first page it's obvious that Leela does want to do good deeds although as she's been controlled by those much more greedy and selfish Leela has had to partake in horrible actions. There is quite a nifty twist here to do with Jered that added a lot of background and angst to the story.
However there's a couple of things that I didn't really enjoy and the first is the odd romance between Jered and Leela that didn't really work for me and the second thing is that towards the end I almost got whiplash as it felt as if we were going round and round in circles ! Sometimes less is more but it certainly didn't prevent me wanting to finish this story. We do get a couple of supporting characters that whilst integral to how everything played out didn't in my opinion get enough page time although without them I don't see how we could have got a happy ending. This is the first book in this series and we do meet the Djinn who I believe will take the lead in the next book and I look forward to discovering what direction the next instalment will go.
This voluntary take is of a copy I requested and my thoughts and comments are honest and I believe fair