Set in a world where magic and mysticism intertwine with the everyday lives of its characters, the novel follows the journey of Seren, a young woman with a mysterious connection to the ancient Seren Stone.

Shambrook's prose is lyrical and evocative, painting a vivid picture of the lush and vibrant landscape that serves as the backdrop for the story. From the rolling hills and lush forests to the mysterious ruins of an ancient civilization, each setting is brought to life with exquisite detail and imagery.

At its heart, "The Seren Stone" is a story about self-discovery, resilience, and the power of love. As Seren navigates the challenges and obstacles that come her way, she learns valuable lessons about acceptance, forgiveness, and the importance of embracing one's true identity.

The characters are richly drawn and multifaceted, each with their own hopes, fears, and desires. From the enigmatic stranger who captures Seren's heart to the wise mentor who guides her on her journey, every character feels authentic and relatable.

Unfortunately this was almost a DNF. It took me several times to go back and restart because the story and characters were confusing at best. I really wanted to like this one, but sadly it was just not for me.

The idea of this story is so fun. The dragons and magic was a good touch. I know this is intended for a younger audience, but I couldn’t help thinking it was lacking character development. I couldn’t picture the siblings the way I could imagine the setting and dragons. Delmar was a good character, but he was a dragon. Loren was a whiney one BUT she’s also 17 thrown into an alternate future world and wounded at the start. Sooo….maybe it’s understandable. Over all it could be amazing. I hope it was edited before release to include the more detail at the start of the story.

Oh, that was a crazy read! I really enjoyed the story and loved the idea and maybe it was just me- but everything just went by so fast and I didn't understand everythig I needed to understand in order to grasp the storyline. I liked the writing, though it didn't quite fit the genre at times; that wasn't an issue at all, it was just different! I also liked the fantasy aspect especially because of the dragons :) and the relationship between our two siblings was great. Overall, if it wasn't so fast-paced and hard to follow, if I were a little younger, this definitely would have had the potential to be outstanding but to me it was just okay.

The Seren Stone has some very interesting aspects with the time jump and magic and dragons. The story has great sibling love and the interaction of the people and the dragons is also great. Unfortunately the MC Loren is not my favorite, I found her annoying and whiny. There were also parts that I felt had to many details and I skimmed over those areas. Overall, the story was so so.

I have a mixed opinion on this, but overall I did not enjoy it. I don't know if the main problem is that I am far removed from the target audience (perhaps it's meant for children, and solely for children?), but in thinking about the themes of the story, I don't think that's the case. Moreover, a good story, even if it's meant for children, can be enjoyable to all audiences.

The most redeemable part of the story is the siblings, and the crux of the worldbuilding, as well as the good action descriptions. However, this doesn't do enough because the rest of the story feels fflawed from the outside in.

I want to believe that the ARC I was provided was before some serious copyediting work was done, because otherwise it's pretty embarassing. The main problem isn't just an obscene lack of editing, but also story structure, especially when it comes to the entire opening. There was no introduction, no preface, nothing -- we were just thrown in the middle of a world and a problem with characters we don't know and don't care about. Anything enjoyable was just too similar to the Chronicles of Narnia or a mishmash of other fantasy stories that include siblings as main characters.

Maybe I will give this another shot in the future if I find a hardcopy. I'm curious to see if the version I received wasn't edited, and the final version fixes some of the glaring issues that kept me from enjoying this.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing this ARC!

The imagery Lisa Shambrook provides when describes the dragons, or the scenery is brilliant. She is obviously a gifted writer. I wanted to like this book. I love the genre, I love reading about dragons and magic, and any book that takes me anywhere is worth a shot. The target audience didn't feel like it was me...and more for 10-14 year olds. It's clean, it tells a fun story, and I think if I had read this at this age I would have really loved it. It felt very much like the The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, but with a bit less sparkle.

I understand genres are subjective, but there's general idea of what Young Adult is and this book does not fit that description. Young Adult stories are typically about YOUNG ADULTS and typically involve a coming of age theme and/or have major character development. This book had NONE of this. I think the author update their genre to children's fiction. She will likely receive better reviews, and the book will be marketed towards the appropriate audience.

This one was a wild ride. I was pleasantly surprised with the writing style. It seemed quite ‘rich’ since the author used some words that are not so common in fantasy books and that made my reading experience more interesting.
There was constant suspense and I just couldn’t put this book down.

Unfortunately, it was very hard to understand things. We jumped straight into the story in the beginning and straight into this new and unknown world. It was extremely confusing. I found it hard to picture the world in my head due to the lack of description and explaining.
The pace of the book was not helping either. I’m a huge fan of fast-paced books, but this one was going too fast for my liking. I felt like we were just jumping from one scene to another, from one danger and place to another. That left no time for us to connect to the characters and to understand this world better.

Still, I quite enjoyed reading it and I found the story intriguing. I just wish it went a bit slower.

I am ranking this a rounded up 3 stars but I mean a 2 1/1 star ranking. I think I am a bit too old for this book. I absolutely hate saying this because I believe many books don’t have ages and can be enjoyed by all. I also believe there is so much that YA can give us. My problems with this story come from the characters themselves Loren is not the most memorable character. She should be more heroic but instead, she feels a bit whiney. Will is much the same way, you can tell that they are siblings. Delmar is probably my favorite character. I enjoy how he is written.

The book starts and throws us immediately into the story. I enjoy that typically however in this story I was scrambling to find my footing for a good 30 pages. I feel like the plot is done a disservice by the characters in the story.

I do think younger audiences will find enjoyment in this novel because it moves so fast and it is easy to read.

Thank you to Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Thank you Netgalley and BHC Press for sending me this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This book began by immediately throwing us into the action. We didn’t have much of an introduction, but rather a whirlwind of events along with the characters who found themselves in an enchanted land.

I feel like this is a book I would’ve enjoyed when I was 12, but it’s not really to my liking now. The plot was definitely action packed, but the characters strongly lacked development and could’ve been executed so much better. Since the characters were so underdeveloped, as a reader, I didn’t feel really connected to any of them.

I love the family relationships between the siblings. Was an enjoyable plot and a book I will be recommending to my fantasy lovers!

DNF at 36%: I went into this book thinking it sounded intriguing. The premise was good, and the dragons were kind of cool. The point of view being third person wasn't very conducive to the story and made it needlessly confusing. Loren was not an appealing main character, and if her siblings were more developed, or more in the spotlight during the times they were involved, it would have been better. I just couldn't push through and finish this one. Thank you Netgalley and publishers for the opportunity to review this book.

I think I am a bit out of target for this book. If I had read this meaybe when I was 12/13 I am sure I would have loved it, but sadly not as of today.
The writing is good, and the plot itseflt is not bad, but I found a lot of passages to be confusing, right from the beginning. It took me some time to understand where this was set and the thing that confused me the most were movements from one place to another. Also, sometimes there just too many descriptions of everything, and this slows down the story a bit.
The characters are not bad, but I did not loved them either, they are just in between. The one I liked the most was Cat, the little sister, I thought she was the one with a distinct and logic behaviour.

I don’t like to write negative reviews but unfortunately this book missed the mark. It had a lot of potential, and I was really excited for it after reading the blurb, but it needs a little work.

I think this tale has a lot of potential; however, I did not feel a connection with the characters making it difficult to emerge yourself in the story. It felt more like a conversation I was listening in on, but not connecting with.

A sincere thank you to NetGalley and BHC Press for providing me a copy of “The Seren Stone” in exchange for an honest review. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to read this story and leave my review voluntarily.

I give this book two stars because it is lacking character development plain and simple. It took me several pages to grasp who the main character was. The main character "Loren" has no memorable qualities. She gripes and moans and doesn't do any particularly heroic nor does her brother Will. Either of these could be taken from the story and I wouldn't miss them. Orca was an interesting character but unfortunately we don't gain anything from him until the end other than possibly some much needed comic relief. Delmar is another character with huge potential but we, again, don't hear back from him until the end. Cat should have been the main character. She is the only one who I felt like I wanted to get back to. The book starts so frantically that I have no idea what is goin on. The blurb talks about "their mother's necklace,"however this wasn't mentioned. A Dragon Scale was mentioned. This book is DragonTales meets Narnia. The plot itself is interesting but I have no way of knowing how dire Rhianna's cause is, no way of feeling Glacia as a complete and total villain. Every character was underdeveloped. My two stars is because it was at least action packed and the plot was thought out. It just needs more character attention.

DNF at 20%

Everything happens way too fast. We jump to the story is like the first page without getting to know anything about the characters or the normal circumstances. I need to know who they are, what they believe in and their lifestyle to be able to fully grasp how suddenly transporting somewhere they don't know affects them.

Also, there is no worldbuilding, not even a scene-building. There were just characters talking, I honestly have no idea what the characters or their surroundings look like. It makes it almost impossible to read since in the fantasy genre it's extremely important to be able to build the world or at least tell how it looks like. I felt like I was just walking through the dark while listening to the conversation of the characters...

...Which wasn't really good too. Their sentences were way too cut short, therefore it wasn't possible to feel their emotions or at least understand their reactions. When you can't understand how a character feels, it creates a lack of empathy which makes it hard to care about the character. And if the reader doesn't care about a character, most of the time they won't care about their adventures either.

The idea of the book was great but the execution was bad, sadly. I won't be posting this on my GoodReads account because I don't want the first thing people see about this book to be something very negative. I don't think it would be fair to the author.

I think this book can turn into something much better if the author took the time to work on it more, starting with the beginning.

Thank you NetGalley and PHC Press for the ARC.