FF Friday: The Cage, by A. M. Dellamonica, and some books I didn’t finish

[rachelmanija]

Jude, a carpenter, has a meet-cute with Paige, a single mom with a baby who needs her basement retrofitted to make it soundproof by the next full moon. It also needs to be well-ventilated and comfortable. And indestructible by, say, an energetic baaaaby wolf. Not that she has a baaaaaby wolf! It’s for, uh, band practice. For her garage band that not only trashed the basement last full moon, but also peed all over the floor.

This is the lesbian werewolf novelette that is everything I wanted Humanity For Beginners to be. It has likable characters, a plot that’s just the right size for its length, nicely worked-out details, and a lesbian community which, while definitely on the wish-fulfillment side, also feels very realistic; it’s like dropping in an actual community on one of its best days. Interestingly, it shares an aspect of worldbuilding with Humanity For Beginners that I don’t see much in contemporary werewolf stories, which is that you become a wolf during the full moon rather than at will, and that when you do, you have a wolf mind rather than a human mind. Also a world in which werewolves are known to the public and have varying legal statuses depending on local jurisdiction.

You can read it for free at Tor.com.

Or you can buy it for 99 cents on Amazon: The Cage: A Tor.Com Original

Has anyone read anything else by A. M. Dellamonica? I see that she has a YA portal fantasy trilogy and a pair of fantasies that are maybe about magic based on color? Those all sound interesting.

I also started and failed to get very far into several FF novels.

Runaway, by Anne Laughlin. The premise is that a PI who grew up in a survivalist compound falls for her new boss while searching for a missing girl. It has a killer prologue in which, at age 16, she escapes the compound by SHOOTING HER FATHER. Then it jumps ahead to her present and becomes a romance about her and her boss, who is cheating on her girlfriend. Cause of stallout: I dislike infidelity storylines and do not find this romantic in any way. Also, I wanted the book about the fallout of having been raised by survivalists, but the actual book appears to be primarily about the cheating romance. Discard.

Firestorm, by Radclyffe. Smokejumpers in love. This does in fact seem to be about the premise, with the twist that the new smokejumper is the daughter of a famous homophobic politician. Cause of stallout: the prose is really clunky. I might get back to it eventually.

Desolation Point, by Cari Hunter. Two women are stranded hiking in the Cascades with a killer on the loose. Cause of stallout: an offputting encounter with stereotypical teenage Latino gangsters in Los Angeles, which in addition to everything else needed an Ameripicker. Otherwise it was reasonably well-written and readable, so I might get back to it eventually.

Comments

[larryhammer]

Janni read and liked Dellamonica's two fantasies with color-titles. I remember very dimly what she said at the time, aside from there was a community aspect to them that she found refreshingly different.

[dirty_diana]

That sounds adorable. I liked AM Dellamonica's portal fantasy a lot, and have spotted a couple other dw-ers that liked it too. Really fun Age of Sail fantasy planet worldbuilding. I haven't noticed particular marketing for it, but my library doesn't shelve it in YA. There's some similar tropes invoked as she uncovers her heritage and whatnot, but the main character is 24.

[mrissa]

Yah, I liked it too but was surprised to see it described as YA.

[rachelmanija]

I must have osmosed that part wrong.

[ambyr]

I tried reading one of Dellamonica's age-of-sale portal fantasy short stories, which are prequels to the novels, and bounced off it, hard. I am told it works much better if you read it after reading the novels, and I'm willing to believe it--lots of prequels rely on knowledge of What Comes Next for emotional resonance. But I thought I'd mention it so you don't try to start there, too.

[muccamukk]

I read Indigo Springs and loved it, then never got around to the sequel. It was doing some really interesting things with PoV and magical world building, I thought.

The Portal fantasy trilogy is a hoot. I enjoyed all three. I found the first one a little slow to get into, but it's basically The Martian goes to a fantasy world. It was so much fun.

My wife and I still go Aroooo at each other, and we read The Cage ten years ago.

[sholio]

Interestingly, it shares an aspect of worldbuilding with Humanity For Beginners that I don’t see much in contemporary werewolf stories, which is that you become a wolf during the full moon rather than at will, and that when you do, you have a wolf mind rather than a human mind.

It's always interesting when I see werewolf-related posts going around on Tumblr (this for example) because it reminds me that I've really gotten used to the shifter-romance concept of werewolves, but outside of that genre, most people still think of werewolves as ravening monsters who transform at the full moon.

#werewolfdefensesquad

[sophia_sol]

Yesss I LOVED The Cage! I've read the first of Dellamonica's portal fantasies too and loved it a lot and keep intending to get around to reading the sequel(s?). If you're interested in reading my thoughts on that one, I posted about it here. No major plot spoilers in my review iirc.

[badgerbag]

I'm going to give "Child of a Hidden Sea" a read. Looks like a middle grade or YA portal fantasy.

[rachelmanija]

See comments above: it's actually an adult fantasy.

[badgerbag]

Oh well I'm fine with that too! The cover kind of fooled me.