A Quokka Dreeds its Weird

Vyr, son of the famous blue dragon Damon Daye, is the reviled and extremely dangerous red dragon. Due to many exciting events which I missed as I read this out of order but which are helpfully recapped in this volume, he is currently separated from his beloved crew and imprisoned in a hellhole prison for worst-of-the-worst shifters; I feel that it's not really a spoiler to say that illegal and immoral experimentation is also going on.

He is SUFFERING and DYING and they are in the process of KILLING HIS DRAGON, an excruciating process after which shifters tend to commit suicide. Because of this, one of his eyes is a DEAD DRAGON EYE. He's in solitary confinement IN THE DARK. But he is voluntarily not breaking out, which he absolutely has the power to do, because to do so would harm his friends, make all shifters look bad, oh yeah and also DESTROY THE ENTIRE WORLD because he can't control his dragon.

Enter Riyah, a telekinetic telepathic psychic therapist who has been recruited by Vyr's mom to pose as a prison counselor and so find out what's really going on in there, save his life, and possibly break him out. She is horrified by prison conditions and what they're doing to Vyr specifically. They can't speak freely because they're constantly monitored, but since she's telepathic they can have secret conversations, including when she's back home. This leads to one of Joyce's hottest sex scenes, conducted entirely long-distance. This is all much less objectionable than would normally be the case as they both know she's not really his therapist.

Typical Joyce characters, made extra fun by Riyah's powers and almost the entire romance occurring sub rosa while the hero is in prison.

Vyr's inability to control his dragon has an unexpected outcome. ( Read more... )

Bull shifters weren't dainty flower-pickin' wood sprites. They broke, punched, and ruined everything they touched. It was in their nature.

Bull shifters on the pro rodeo circuit!

In a world in which shifters are known to the general public, bull shifter rodeo has become a pro sport in which humans attempt to stay on a bucking bull shifter for eight seconds. The hero is named Two Shots Down and he's the bad guy that the audience loves to hate. Other bucking bulls are named First Time Train Wreck, Dead of Winter (everyone just calls him Dead) and Kiss Your Momma Goodbye.

The heroine’s first husband was a human rodeo rider who was ACCIDENTALLY KILLED BY THE HERO, who returns to rodeo to manage the top three shifter bulls - him included. Two Shots Down was so traumatized by this that he initially refuses to even talk to her. She proceeds to yank out the battery connector to his truck to force him to listen to her pitch over lunch.

He ordered a few chicken sandwiches for himself because he'd always felt a bit squeamish about eating beef. Felt like cannibalism, but some bull shifters were fine with it. That psychopath Dead of Winter ate a medium rare steak dinner every time he placed in the top three and took home money from an event, or so the rumors said.

When they fall for each other, the media pounces and mean headlines proliferate, like

TAKE A LIFE, GET A WIFE

and

DATING YOUR HUSBAND'S MURDERER: WHEN IS TOO SOON?

I've read the first two of Joyce's "Battle of the Bulls" series in two days, and I can confidently say that it's her best since the first two Lumberjack Werebears series. It completely plays to her strengths: a vivid, blue-collar setting that she clearly knows and loves, heroes who are equal parts exaggerated masculinity and hearts of gold, funny gritty heroines, found family camaraderie, and go-for-broke worldbuilding which is bonkers fun within its own self-contained world. If you like your bull shifter rodeo series with lots of details about fans and venues and prize money, this is the series for you.

Two Shots Down (Battle of the Bulls Book 1)

This one was a misfire for me, surprisingly because I really enjoyed the first.

The heroine, Sadey, just found out that her husband Dallas had been married to her schoolfriend Maris the entire time he was dating her. I am very confused by how she could have not figured this out for literally years given that Dallas and Maris lived together and owned a ranch together!

She dumps his sorry ass and apologizes to Maris in a bar. Sadey expects Maris to hate her, but she’s actually very nice. Dallas comes in and is a dick. Maris is there with her mate and the werewolf brothers, Hunter and Wes. Hunter goes absolutely nuts on Dallas and has to be dragged away and shoved into a truck before he turns into a wolf in public!

Wes orders Hunter to stay away from Sadey, since she clearly makes him insane. Hunter does, but writes her a letter by cutting and pasting magazine letters, which she calls a “serial killer letter” but is charmed by, and writes him a letter in return which he has her read aloud because he reads so slowly/poorly. This is actually pretty cute.

In the previous book, Hunter came across as the quiet, good-natured, scholarly one, as opposed to his brother Wes who’s a lady’s man, hot-tempered, and kind of a dick. In this book, he has a total personality change and is portrayed as having a cognitive disability caused by brain damage from birth, which means he talks and acts like a werewolf Forrest Gump. He can barely read or write, only Joyce had previously set up that he was the one who read all the books to help Maris survive so he inexplicably has all these books that he reads and understands, but he can also barely read a letter and has an extremely limited vocabulary.

It turns out that Hunter is dying of a broken heart which has magically turned his blood black and given him wounds that won’t heal, because his brother left him for dead in the previous book. He nevertheless has sex with Sadey. Their whole courtship is weird as it ping-pongs between being so cute it’s twee and the angst of him dying, which makes the whole thing just bizarre. Especially as no one really does anything about him literally dying for ages even though they all know about it for most of the book.

Finally Wes decides to fix him, and Sadey moves across town. The entire emotional crux of the story, in which Hunter is healed, happens off-page and without the heroine’s involvement. Wes and Hunter reconcile, oh yeah and Sadey and Hunter are an item, yay happy ending! And then there’s a hook for the next book, which is more interesting than anything that happens in this book.

The book had a lot of noticeable typos, missing periods, the hero’s name not capitalized, etc. It clearly wasn’t proofread at all.

The hero really did not work for me. He’s very passive and under his brother’s thumb. The cognitive disability was portrayed like older books write “simple” characters. He’s big and strong and nice, but the whole package was really, really not my romantic fantasy. And the heroine comes across as childish and immature.

The climax not only happens off-page, but isn’t about their relationship at all, which is weird in a romance. Genre romance is about the romantic relationship; there can be other important relationships as well, but they can't displace the romance. Even if reconciling with your brother is hugely important, normally the heroine would also be present for that scene, or have talked the hero into doing it, etc.

On the plus side, Maris and Sadey's relationship is nice. Joyce usually goes out of her way to portray friendships between women, and manages to do so here even despite using the "most women can't be shifters" trope that normally works to prevent that.

Make Her New (Kaid Ranch Shifters Book 2)

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

A science fiction romance by Sholio! If you enjoyed her Lauren Esker books, you will enjoy this. To me it reads closer to the style/content of her fanfic than her other pro work, so if you like her fic....

Metal Wolf throws space opera, shifter romance, black helicopter government conspiracy thrillers, 80s movies about alien refugees discovering Earth, and a couple more genres into a blender.

Enslaved blue alien werewolf fighter pilot Rei gets an unexpected chance at escape when his single-occupancy fighter pod gets hit, knocking out the communications systems; he makes a run for it, and crash-lands in a pond in Wisconsin. He's fished out by Sarah Metzger, who lives with her disabled veteran father on a small farm, struggling to make ends meet while attending community college classes in the almost-certainly-hopeless attempt to fulfill her dream of becoming an astrophysicist. As it turns out, the stars are closer than she thinks.

This is not an insta-love romance. Both love and story take their time as the characters get to know each other (it's a while before they even work out how to communicate) and explore their new worlds, with a gradual build to an action climax. The characters are really likable (one of my favorite relationships is between Rei and Sarah's dad), and the worldbuilding is secondary to the relationships but intriguing and thought-through. Metal Wolf is fun, often funny, touching, and extremely readable, with a very satisfying ending.

Gloria is a 40-something woman who used to be in the army, and now runs a halfway house for lesbian werewolves. (It’s self-supporting as a B&B; they just don’t book guests on full moon nights.)

The chef, Nadine, is a refugee from a controlling/abusive pack, and has been there for six years while they both refrained from acting on their attraction for reasons that I have already forgotten even though I am writing this review literally hours after finished this novelette. Something to do with not being sure the other was into them and/or not wanting to disrupt their friendship, I think. This is the book where they get together – again, I have already forgotten exactly what sparked that. Meanwhile, there is an unexpected family visit or two, and a pack of sexist male wolves is moving in on them. But it all works out okay.

I ought to have loved this – the premise is great, and I enjoy stories about day-to-day life in a specific community – but I only mildly liked it. The rival wolves didn’t ever feel like a real threat, and the family drama was not very dramatic. There’s past trauma, but too lightly sketched in to give the book a deliciously iddy/angsty tone or to give the present healing an emotional punch.

That leaves what should have been the real draw, which was the depiction of the community. But the characters felt thin, and other than the delightful bit about them all having to lock themselves in the basement with a kiddie pool and chew toys when they wolf out, there weren’t enough specific details to bring the setting to life or make the day-to-day aspects compelling.

However, it has universally rave reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, and I’m sure some of you would absolutely love it. It has a female alpha who’s decisive and compassionate, most of the characters are female or queer or both, and it contains many elements that people often say they want in fiction, such as characters who articulate their feelings and communicate clearly with each other rather than having stupid misunderstandings or unnecessary conflict. Humanity For Beginners is extremely wholesome and full of good values—too much so, for my taste. Without being preachy, it still has a “good for you” atmosphere, with extremely valid issues phrased like the human relations section of Ask MeFi. Personally, I wanted more bite.

Disclaimer: these are by Sholio (formerly Friendshipper), a friend of mine. If you like my Werewolf Marines series, you would probably like these.

This is going to be more about Guard Wolf, as I read that a lot more recently. It’s a sequel but can be read independently, in an urban fantasy series about an agency of shapeshifters that secretly investigates shifter-related crimes. I would call them urban fantasy with romance rather than paranormal romance with action; there is romance, but the emphasis is on action and ensemble. (The main characters of Handcuffed to the Bear spend most of the book naked and handcuffed to each other, but don’t have sex until the end, when they are no longer handcuffed or naked – well, they get naked, but only after putting clothes on.)

In Handcuffed to the Bear, Casey, a civilian lynx shifter, investigates her friend’s disappearance and ends up handcuffed to Jack, a bear shifter agent, naked and hunted through the wilderness in a “Most Dangerous Game” scenario. (Handwavey high-tech cuffs prevent them from getting loose by shapeshifting.) They bond and try to survive; meanwhile, Jack’s agency is trying to find him. There are some spectacular action sequences in this; my favorite involves a tin-roofed shack, a boat, and a seriously pissed off female orca shifter agent. In fact my favorite parts of this book were the shifter agency ensemble sections, which was good because book two has lots more of that.

Guard Wolf, which as I mentioned is a sequel but can be read independently, concerns one of my other favorite characters from the first book, werewolf and giant woobie Avery. He is a disabled veteran with a horrifically dysfunctional upbringing and a number of odd habits, and since werewolves are generally very clannish, he has no idea whether he’s weird because he’s a wolf without a pack or if he’s just massively fucked up. I adore him and he was my favorite thing about the book, which is saying a lot because I also really like the heroine, a koala shifter who is generally well-adjusted but takes meds for clinical depression, and also because it involves my favorite thing, an evil lab doing evil experiments. The portrayal of trauma and mental illness is extremely realistic, and also worked into the plot in clever ways – at one point the heroine has to do some very difficult and dangerous things while going cold turkey off meds, since she got kidnapped without them.

Guard Wolf is also notable for overcoming my aversion to kidfic. A box of abandoned werewolf pups sets off the plot, and plays a very large role in it. I liked the book anyway. This is impressive. It’s also pretty funny at times – the spectacularly useless jumping spider intern was hilarious – and, despite some dark subject matter, has an overall cozy/comforting feel. Avery needs ALL the cuddles, and actually gets them.

Guard Wolf: BBW Paranormal Wolf Shifter Romance (Shifter Agents Book 2) (Only 99 cents for a full-length novel.)

Handcuffed to the Bear: BBW Paranormal Bear Shifter Romance (Shifter Agents Book 1)

This novel prompted the following conversation, held with oyceter via cellphone:

Oyce: The angels-make-vampires writer also wrote a book about shapeshifter condos!

Me: Did you say shapeshifter condoms?

Oyce: Yes! Shapeshifter condos!

Me: Are they specially designed?

Oyce: Well, shapeshifters have special needs.

Me: I guess they’d need different sizes…

Oyce: Yes, depending on what they shapeshift into. Like, leopards need lots of room.

Me: And of course they’d have to be extra-resilient.

Oyce: They do need to allow for wear and tear when they turn into animals.

Me: They’d have to expand and contract really fast without breaking. Especially if some of their penises become forked or something.

Oyce: Forked??? Penises??? What???

Me: Did you say “condoms?”

Oyce: ConDOS -- condominiums!

Regrettably, the special shapeshifter condoms condos are more of a plot device than the subject matter of this paranormal romance. The condos were my second-favorite part of the book. My favorite was that the heroine has extra-special eyes that look like the night sky with stars, and when she has an orgasm, the stars explode into multi-colored fireworks.

In a world in which Changeling shapeshifters have allowed Yosemite to overgrow much of California and the telepathic Psy deal with their nasty little tendency to become psychotic serial killers by suppressing all emotion, multiracial Psy Sascha, who must hide the fact that she has emotions or be forcibly brainwashed, becomes the liaison between Psy and Changeling in order to broker a land deal for condominiums. When she meets hot Changeling Lucas, condoms also become relevant. As there’s a serial killer on the loose, the plot is actually, “He’s a werewolf with a tragic past. She’s a telepath with a deadly secret. Together, they fight crime!”

As I mentioned in my review of Singh’s angels-make-vampires novel, I have terribly mixed feelings about her books.

I love the over the top wish-fulfillment fantasies (eyeball fireworks! Totally literal angel dust!), bizarre yet inventive and detailed worldbuilding, multiracial casts (though I wish she’d stop describing her heroines of color as “exotic”) and a compellingly beach-read style.

I hate the gender roles, in which men are turned on by dominating women, and women are turned on by being dominated. (I don’t mind this if it’s BDSM role-playing, though I prefer female-dominant. What I hate reading about is when this is portrayed as the way romance normally goes.) This means I don’t like Singh’s romances. This is a problem, as romance is central to the romance genre. In this novel, the hero keeps talking about “marking” the heroine so everyone will know she belongs to him. This would be gross enough as is, but since the book involves wolf shapeshifters, I kept thinking he was planning to pee on her. (It’s actually done by biting.)

And yet Singh’s books have that same addictive quality as Laurell Hamilton’s early novels, which had me running out to buy more even though they had too much sex and not enough action and I detested both of Anita’s love interests. (I gave up on Hamilton at around the point where I had to detest all 69 of Anita’s love interests.) I… oh, I confess it… will undoubtedly read more of the Psy/Changeling series, and even went online to find out the release date of the next angel/vampire book.

Slave to Sensation (The Psy-Changelings Series, Book 1) (Berkley Sensation)

The best description of Liu’s novels comes from meganbmoore, who described them as “The X-Men as genre romance.”

Dirk and Steele is a high-priced, high-class security agency… because its agents are all secretly shapeshifters, telepaths, and other mutants! Each novel is a romantic thriller featuring psychic powers and/or magic, plus some truly cracktastic plotting.

Liu’s prose is ordinary at best, though her dialogue is good, and can veer into ultraviolet. Her plots tend (quite endearingly, in my opinion) toward “everything and the kitchen sink.” Her cast is multiracial and multicultural, and both her heroes and heroines tend to be sweet and tough, wisecracking and angsty. The romances are frequently interracial, though so far I think they’ve all been person of color/white person.

I like her because her romances ring true and don’t make me want to take out a restraining order on the heroes, I love psychic powers and angst and she has lots and lots of both, there’s plenty of action and wry comedy, and I enjoy her enthusiastic approach to plotting (“And then he runs away to the circus, and there’s an old woman who can turn into a dragon, and then they all get on a train to Russia with some immortal dude. And then a mummy attacks.”)

Here’s a quick run-down on her novels. They don’t need to be read in order (and I don’t think I’ve listed them in order.) Like Suzanne Brockmann, there’s a large cast of recurring characters and the supporting ones tend to get their own books and own romances eventually.

Eye of Heaven. Blue is an Iranian-American agent with electrical powers and tons of family angst, including a brother who ran away to join the circus. Iris is a white circus performer who can turn into a lion. Together, they fight organ-leggers! Someone loses an eye, or maybe an ear; I forget. Great fun. Click here to buy it from Amazon: Eye of Heaven (Dirk & Steele, Book 5)

Shadow Touch. Artur is a Russian psychometrist. Elena is a healer. They’re both held captive in an evil laboratory and must bond on the psychic plane to escape. This one is super-angsty. It was the first I read, and got me hooked on the series. Click here to buy it from Amazon: Shadow Touch (Dirk & Steele, Book 2)

Tiger Eye. Dela is a psychic who opens a magic box. Hari is the ancient shapeshifter who pops out of it after being imprisoned for thousands of years as the slave of the owner of the box. The novel avoids accidentally creepy power dynamics by having the characters realize how creepy and horrible Hari’s situation is, and do their best to free him. Sexy and sweet. Click here to buy it from Amazon: Tiger Eye (Dirk & Steele, Book 1)

The Wild Road. He’s a gargoyle disguised as a human. She’s an amnesiac covered in blood who tries to steal his car. They go on the run and end up squared off against the Queen of Elfland, if I remember correctly. The combination of two stoic, quiet, brooding characters is surprisingly entertaining. Click here to buy it from Amazon: The Wild Road (Dirk & Steele)

The Red Heart of Jade. Loved the main couple, but the plot crossed the line from wacky to incomprehensible. Some funny bits, but overall skippable. Click here to buy it from Amazon: The Red Heart of Jade (Dirk & Steele, Book 3)

The Last Twilight. Rikki is a virologist investigating a hot zone. Amiri is a mild-mannered former teacher and current agent by day, and a cheetah whenever he feels like it. They fight biological weapons-makers in Africa. I loved the main couple and the supporting character (Eddie), and appreciated Liu pointing out that Africa is a very big and diverse place, and that just because Amiri is from Kenya doesn’t mean he knows anything about the Democratic Republic of Congo. Given that, it’s too bad that the actual plot centers around every African cliché from Ebola to hatchet-wielding rebels. I think I would have also bristled at the African hero having an animal form if this had been the first Liu book I read, but since it was about the fifth and the series has multiple shapeshifters of various races, I didn’t. Your mileage may vary. Overall, though, I enjoyed it a lot. Click here to buy it from Amazon: The Last Twilight (Dirk & Steele)

I haven’t yet read the last two on this list, but you can still click to buy them from Amazon!

The one with the merman: Soul Song (Dirk & Steele, Book 6)

The one that isn’t Dirk and Steele: A Taste of Crimson (Crimson City)