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Stone and Sky

Out Now: The Brand New Rivers of London Novel

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Stone and Sky

By: Ben Aaronovitch
Narrated by: Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Shvorne Marks
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About this listen

THE BRAND NEW NOVEL IN THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLING RIVERS OF LONDON SERIES

'This isn't London. The rules are different up here, and so are the allegiances.'

Detective Sergeant Peter Grant takes a much-needed holiday up in Scotland. And he'll need one when this is over...

If more's the merrier, then it's ecstatic as his partner Beverley, their young twins, his mum, dad, his dad's band and their dodgy manager all tag along. Even his boss, DCI Thomas Nightingale, takes in the coastal airs as he trains Peter's cousin Abigail in the arcane arts.

And they'll need them too, because Scotland's Granite City has more than its fair share of history and mystery, myth ... and murder.

When a body is found in a bus stop, fresh from the sea, the case smells fishy from the off.

Something may be stirring beyond the bay - but there's something far stranger in the sky...

* * * * *

'Ben Aaronovitch has created a wonderful world full of mystery, magic and fantastic characters. I love being there more than the real London'
NICK FROST

'An incredibly fast-moving magical joyride for grown-ups'
THE TIMES

©2025 Ben Aaronovitch (P)2025 Orion Publishing Group Limited Crime Fiction Fantasy Mystery Police Procedurals England Magic Boss

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All stars
Most relevant  
waiting years for a new story then listening in two days, not disappointed. All the characters we love are here with more focus on Abigail who has grown up. 2 years since the last story. We meet more mythical creatures and a fantastic setting takes us away from London. Lots of small leads to take us into the next stories.

each character and the Folly developed since last book

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I enjoyed the subtle development of the characters as they have aged. As always the story itself is fascinating and full of magic, mystery and humour. Of course Kobna’s narration is a master class in delivering colloquial terms and accents and suspense. Thank you.

An awesome tale Beneath Stone and Sky.

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Story line, characters and the reading was excellent as always

The narrators make this book - and the series- so well done to them too

A real treat

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Love the brilliant characters, the various strands of developing storyline and of course the narration, like butter to the ears. Hope the next adventure is nearly written.

Perfect gripping adventure in Scotland

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I wait eagerly for the next Rivers novel and this one didn’t disappoint. Great new characters and Kobna did a masterful job with the accents (I think Ben is upping his game in trying to send Kobna scatty!). Loved the foxes- I would love some side quests with the foxes, please? Well worth the wait.

Loved it - new characters and old

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To start with the good, I enjoyed this much much more than the previous two - post the wrap up of the Faceless Man I’d felt the series start to drift and I’m not quite invested enough to read all the spin offs and novellas etc. But I thought this made more of a virtue out of being a broadly standalone story, and it’s still an incredibly fun series.

However, it’s the first one I wish I’d read instead of listened to. While I don’t mind the dual narration at all and I like Abigail as a character, it does feel like Ben Aaronovitch struggles to write as fluently in her voice as he does Peter’s. In some ways this is to be expected with Peter being the OG protagonist, but given that Abigail is a young Black woman, it sometimes feels borderline uncomfortable (like he’s learnt a few words of MLE and used them at every opportunity - it’s not offensive but it’s not convincing either). Perhaps relatedly, Shvorne Marks sounds almost a bit embarrassed sometimes.

Overall this could feel more cohesive - as others have observed there’s a sharp divide between the Peter and Abigail segments in the writing, and as a production more effort could have gone to making sure Shvorne’s character voices matched Kobna’s (where already established). Some dodgy Scots accents from both sides too, I’m afraid.

But look, it’s still 4 stars from me so clearly these aren’t major issues in the end, and I’ll be here for the next one!

Enjoyable but unfocused

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So good. So very good. A wonderful continuation of the story arc with loads of superb details utterly fitting to the area, the offshore industry, and the regional folk tales… and, of course, loads of little jokes and word plays throughout.

Amazingly well researched

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Did not like the dual narration, the Abigail narrator was not very good I’m afraid. Feel this novel was missing something, not up to the quality of the previous stories.

Kobna Holdbrook-Smith narration, as always, brilliant

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Real talk bruv, i’m blind, so I can’t read the graphic novels, and since we’re in double figures of those and references to what happens in them is becoming extremely plot relevant, we either need them to be made into an audiobook collection like Tales from the Folly, or Ben needs to stop referencing them! I know but they are graphic novels, I know they don’t lend themselves to audio, but I literally cannot read them!
The story is excellent, but it does take five chapters to get going. I had to speed up a segment at one point because Kobna’s voice became too slow, flat and was reading a rather tedious passage which kept sending me to sleep. but the story properly feels like a river of London book after chapter 5.
I’m sorry to say that while Siobhan get the rice right for Abigail, none of the other voices sound right, or particularly different from each other while she’s narrating. having the two readers also made the two plot lines feel quite disconnected, there’s almost literally no crossover between Abigail and Peter which makes it hard to keep track of.
Generally, this is a good book, but probably not the best in the series, which is still one of my favourite series out there.

We need audiobooks of the graphic novels!

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I enjoyed this, thank you
Nice to hear more fun stories read by great narrators

Great

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