The Stone Key was first published in Australia on 4 February 2008 by Viking Children's Books in trade paperback format.

[2] The Stone Key was a short-list nominee for the 2008 Aurealis Award for best young-adult novel but lost to Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta.

[3] When Elspeth sets out from Obernewtyn to Sutrium to testify at the trial of a rebel traitor, she quickly learns not everyone has welcomed the changes caused by the rebellion.

To stop it, Elspeth risks everything, for if she dies, she will never be able to complete her quest to destroy the weaponmachines which wiped out the Beforetime; but if she succeeds, it might just bring her to the final clue needed to find them...[4][5] A reviewer for the Canberra Times noted: "Freedom, Carmody suggests, is messy and in some ways harder to live with than totalitarian rule...Her heroes and heroines are utterly implacable in their refusal to compromise their morals: they are filled with a profound respect for all life, treating animals as their intellectual equals and steadfastly refusing to participate in any activity that will cause harm to another living creature."

They concluded: "The Stone Key appeals to the type of teenager who reads literature for consolation, to enter a world where people are better, where their actions matter, where the adolescent search for identity and a place in the world can be tied up with a quest to save humanity...Despite this, they remain utterly human, inspiring empathy and driving a compelling plot.