Stone & Sky is Book 10 in the fantastic Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch. The entire Rivers of London book universe (books, novellas, and graphic novels) make up one of my favourite current series and one of the few times I drop all my waiting cozy mysteries to read an urban fantasy.
Title: Stone & Sky
Author: Ben Aaronovitch
Series: Rivers of London book 10
First Published: July 8, 2025
Publisher: DAW
Genres: urban fantasy
Acquired: from the publisher via NetGalley
*** Thank you to the publisher, DAW, for providing me with an eARC of this book via NetGalley for review purposes. ***
All Detective Sergeant Peter Grant wanted was a nice holiday up in Scotland. He’ll need one once this is over…
Sea: check.
Sand: some.
Sun: sort of – but that’s not the only thing in the sky…
A trip to Scotland brings a fresh adventure to the Rivers of London series
One of the few non-cozy mystery series on my “Automatic Buy” list is Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series. I have been obsessed with this series since the very first book, Rivers of London, which I picked up on a whim because I found the title and cover intriguing.
Book 10, Stone & Sky, takes our heroes (and family and friends) to Scotland. I was so excited to get my hands on this book. Scotland is on my bucket list to travel to and seeing a Rivers of London adventure set here was absolutely fantastic.
Everyone has trooped along to Scotland. And I do mean everyone – Peter, Bev, the twins, Abigail, Indigo the fox, Nightingale, Dr. Walid, Zack, Peter’s parents AND The Irregulars band. See? EVERYONE.
There’s a lot to dive into with this new book. Our characters are out of their element and now dealing with new characters (both magical and non-magical), new folktales, new locations, new everything. It was a lot of fun seeing them navigate this “new” environment.
Lots of love (and a few things I’m not really into)
The book is split into following Peter and Abigail on their respective adventures (that eventually overlap) and so we get to see a lot of different groups in action. I both like and dislike how much growth the characters have gone through in the last few books because it feels like we’re often moving on from Peter’s adventures and focusing more on Abigail and I’m not sure how I feel about that yet.
When we did focus on Peter’s part, I absolutely LOVED it. It really reminded me of the first few Rivers of London books – Peter is a bit out of his element and there’s magical creatures, fae, river deities, and more.
A few minor dislikes – With Abigail taking so much more of a main character role, Peter’s part has gotten smaller, and Nightingale’s booktime has gotten tiny (or what feels like tiny). I wanted more Nightingale. I also feel like there were TOO many of the main/recurring characters that added nothing to the fun Scottish adventure (Zack, Peter’s parents, etc) and they were there more for logistical reasons (babysitting the twins).
Another thing is I would have loved even more Scottish folklore and rivers to be introduced/involved. There wasn’t enough of that for me.
That being said, those few dislikes didn’t take away from my enjoyment of the book overall. I mean, I adore this series so I devour any book that comes out and I’m already looking forward to whatever comes out next in this series!
