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trin 's review for:

Her Knight at the Museum by Bryn Donovan
3.5
emotional funny lighthearted fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Emily is an art restorer who's assigned to work on an eerily lifelike medieval statue of a knight. Said statue is in fact a knight named Griffin, who was changed to stone by a curse. True love's kiss does it usual thing, and now Griffin is alive again in 21st Century Chicago, and Emily is at the center of a true crime media storm for the impossible art heist that occurred at her place of work. Shenanigans!

This was precisely the right kind of silly. The characters are well-drawn; I appreciated that Donovan lets Griffin have his trauma for having been encased in stone for centuries -- truly horror movie stuff. Emily and Griffin get intimate fairly early on, which worried me, as I prefer a slow burn -- both as a personal preference and also because I think it simply creates more narrative tension. Fortunately, Emily decides to pump the breaks for realistic character reasons, and things develop naturally. Griffin's exuberance and joie de vivre <i>are</i> very charming, and while I facepalmed over some of the characters' decisions, overall they fit the goofy, light tone.

A perfect, sweet distraction.