When I first picked up this book, all I knew was that it had to do with a human heroine and a statue come to life. This could be anything from the Greek legend of Pygmalion to some desperate creature canoodling with the garden gnomes. The reality? A very readable writing style and some very clever moments are sadly undermined by a lack of character development and some truly irritating secondary characters and plots.

Heroine Katie James buys old homes and restores them. Her current property is a Victorian that happens to have a rather racy sculpture garden. In a moment of desperation, Katie finds herself caressing her favorite statue in the garden, eventually kissing it. The statue then comes to life, and Katie learns that she has awakened Prince Jorlan en Sarr, an alien turned to stone by his jealous half-brother.

Katie makes it very clear from the beginning that she’s spent her life struggling to get out from under the thumbs of her overbearing father and brothers. So, who does her fantasy man turn out to be? If you said the most alpha of alpha males, you would be right. Jorlan sees women as subservient objects, so Katie’s refusal to bow to his every demand is quite novel to him. This is a plot point that many will find grating at first, however, Jorlan is more willing to listen than some heroes and he has a sense of humor that makes him far more likable than he would otherwise be.

As Katie and Jorlan spend more time together, they become more drawn to one another. However, this growing emotion is not enough. Jorlan is not yet free of the curse binding him, so it appears that the two will have a very short time together unless something can be done to thwart Jorlan’s half-brother for good. Watching the two learn to respect and even to love one another has some very fun moments. Unfortunately, there are also some very tedious moments. For some reason, the author insists on having Jorlan speak in a very stilted fashion. This isn’t done consistently, but when it is present, it can make the dialogue a tad annoying to follow. Supposedly, Jorlan spent plenty of time in Katie’s garden as a statue and learned English from hearing it all around him, making his bursts of Yoda-speak somewhat unbelievable.

On the plus side, Katie and Jorlan have some very funny moments as they build their relationship. Their hunt for a sorcerer is also quite entertaining and, without giving anything away, their first real love scene will be hard to forget. However, these funny moments are lost amid secondary characters (such as Jorlan’s half-brother and Katie’s family) and an alien planet that are not well-developed (or well-used) at all. Additionally, there is a secondary romance toward the end that seems to happen much too easily, and supporting characters’ abusive pasts are sometimes used as a shortcut in place of real character development. Ultimately, even though I liked some of the funnier moments, Katie and Jorlan never felt real to me at all. Neither character was particularly well-developed and I felt somewhat distanced from this story as I watched these primarily one-dimensional characters interact.

While Showalter’s story has an interesting premise, the pieces never come together to make a pleasing whole. The roughness in characterization and the sometimes grating plot points make for a rough read. There are some amusing moments in here, but I can’t say I found it worth the bother.