![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
A highly enjoyable novel about shifters (Wrasa) secretly living among us and the human woman writing a lesbian romance novel about them which is unwittingly all too accurate. Despite the amusing premise and a number of quite funny scenes and bits (the liger shifter heroine nearly gets her cover blown due to setting off a human's cat allergy; a menacing lion shifter is maced with catnip and starts rolling around on the ground laughing hysterically), it's overall fairly serious, with high stakes and lots of intricate shifter worldbuilding. The Wrasa are more animalistic and less human than is usually the case nowadays, and Jae gets a lot of mileage out of exploring that.
Griffin, a liger soldier/assassin dedicated to protecting her society’s secret at any cost, is dispatched to investigate Jorie, the romance novelist, to find out why her in-progess novel is so accurate. (Jorie’s beta-reader is a Wrasa.) While posing as an expert on big cats, Griffin gets to know Jorie and her three housecats, and starts questioning her society’s priorities and her own mission, which is likely to end with her getting the order to kill Jorie. My common complaint about novels not following through on their premise is a complete non-issue here: every aspect of the premise, including “What if I get ordered to murder an innocent woman who I think I might have a crush on?” is explored in satisfying detail.
This reads more like an urban fantasy novel from the 80s than like a typical paranormal romance. There are a number of important relationships other than Griffin/Jorie, and the antagonist gets his own POV. (The other relationships are great; the antagonist POV doesn’t add much, IMO, though at least he’s a well-meaning extremist rather than a sadistic psycho.) Though it does allow for all three POV characters, two of whom know anything about writing or publishing, to somehow instinctively know that lesbian fiction is “niche” and unlikely to sell well. I feel that this part just might be autobiographical.)
I liked this a lot and will read the other book set in the same world. It’s nicely plotted, the characters are interesting and fun, and the worldbuilding is really well-done.
Second Nature
Griffin, a liger soldier/assassin dedicated to protecting her society’s secret at any cost, is dispatched to investigate Jorie, the romance novelist, to find out why her in-progess novel is so accurate. (Jorie’s beta-reader is a Wrasa.) While posing as an expert on big cats, Griffin gets to know Jorie and her three housecats, and starts questioning her society’s priorities and her own mission, which is likely to end with her getting the order to kill Jorie. My common complaint about novels not following through on their premise is a complete non-issue here: every aspect of the premise, including “What if I get ordered to murder an innocent woman who I think I might have a crush on?” is explored in satisfying detail.
This reads more like an urban fantasy novel from the 80s than like a typical paranormal romance. There are a number of important relationships other than Griffin/Jorie, and the antagonist gets his own POV. (The other relationships are great; the antagonist POV doesn’t add much, IMO, though at least he’s a well-meaning extremist rather than a sadistic psycho.) Though it does allow for all three POV characters, two of whom know anything about writing or publishing, to somehow instinctively know that lesbian fiction is “niche” and unlikely to sell well. I feel that this part just might be autobiographical.)
I liked this a lot and will read the other book set in the same world. It’s nicely plotted, the characters are interesting and fun, and the worldbuilding is really well-done.
Second Nature
