weresquirrel romance, what was I thinking?
Neil once called me the mistress of the backhanded gift and I was prouder of that compliment than I had any right to be. Especially as it was not intended as a compliment.
So when the badly photoshopped cover of an m/m romance about a weresquirrel crossed my path, I cackled and cackled like a rabid rodent, picturing N's horror when given a copy. Cos my presents have been tediously predictable of late.
All the time I was waiting for delivery there were thinky thoughts. Size queen is going to mean something different in this story for a start. Does our hero transform into a man size squirrel? That would be problematic. And conspicuous. Sure, in our current civilised state, he could indicate via mime that he was a furry and then nobody would think the worse of him. Or a professional sports mascot, that's an option. But what about his ancestors? Your basic olde worlde wererodent, post Black Death, would be surrounded by angry peasants shouting in a devonian accent: "Monster! Pitchforks! Fire! mmmBarbecue!" (Devonians and their cooking rituals, really) The neighbours of his American old school ancestors would bring more technology to the yard. "I hear there's good eating on those. What a helpfully big target. Where's my flintlock."
Also, and Mattel soft toys are to blame for this, the squirrel is a hard sell as a smouldericious alpha hero. Snuggley, yes, but not Byronic. By the time the book arrived I had doubts.
One of the doubts was whether I'd maybe nitpicked the concept harder than the author had.
So. This is from the back cover blurb. Stew or spouse? It is the dilemma werewolf Soren fights upon taking shapeshifter Daniel as his mate.
Then the book arrived. Here is a quote. As squirrels said, he was nuts about the wolf.
More thinky thoughts. Is it worth getting angry about dub-con being presented as lurrrve when (a) this is not kitchen sink realism and (b) this is astonishingly badly written not-realism.
The dialogue is a bit stilted. "We're both mammals, and sheep are familiar with wolf anatomy." We have as-you-know-bob scenes like the one where a were squirrel M.D. explains to a werewolf what being a shapeshifter means in medical terms. We have uncomfortable-making smut. Soren the wolf has no personality at all. Soren looked like an ancient god, strong, unfathomably fearless.." It goes on, purplishly, but I was so thrown by unfathomably in that sentence that I lost the thread. Daniel the squirrel's characterisation consists of him having the speech patterns of Mr Spock. Now, who would have thought of that? Here are his first reported words "I am truly enthused that Shiloh can at last rejoice with his mate and child."
The pacing goes from awkward small talk (1st page of story) to molestation (2nd page etc) quicker than a Top Gear car. Given Daniel's speech patterns, Soren may have been trying to shut him up. This is book 3 out of a series of novellas, so it's more like an episode than a self contained thing; the beginning abrupt and the ending not feeling very conclusive.
I can't really comment on the sex scenes. You know how Mills & Boon used to do it - all whirling and overwhelming and vortexes and then you said decisively, yes, I will buy this jacuzzi and got a bit disorientated when a body part got name checked (O, wait, not a jacuzzi review I'm reading.) This was more tab A into slot B, as far as I can tell. Try as I might I kept skim-reading the shagging, even when I went back in a homework frame of mind and tried to concentrate. The sex that punctuated this kicked off very abruptly. One minute it was all about the guest list for a child's party, the next, trail of garments. He grinned when his mate chirp-screamed in pleasure and massaged Daniel's special spot. Sex is such a silly thing to do with your body that reading it in cold blood (maybe it would have worked if I cared about the characters but I didn't and it didn't) is a weird feeling. I'm dead impressed by anyone who does write effective sex because when it fails it's even flatter than unsuccessful comedy.
By the way, the wereshark mafioso - his name is Heathcliff - can't take his animal form on land. It's fun to see them give a friendly wave to the laws of physics.
I hoped this would be gloriously terrible but was only half right. Still, I brought it on myself. N, on the other hand, is going to be an innocent victim. Wish him well.
So when the badly photoshopped cover of an m/m romance about a weresquirrel crossed my path, I cackled and cackled like a rabid rodent, picturing N's horror when given a copy. Cos my presents have been tediously predictable of late.
All the time I was waiting for delivery there were thinky thoughts. Size queen is going to mean something different in this story for a start. Does our hero transform into a man size squirrel? That would be problematic. And conspicuous. Sure, in our current civilised state, he could indicate via mime that he was a furry and then nobody would think the worse of him. Or a professional sports mascot, that's an option. But what about his ancestors? Your basic olde worlde wererodent, post Black Death, would be surrounded by angry peasants shouting in a devonian accent: "Monster! Pitchforks! Fire! mmmBarbecue!" (Devonians and their cooking rituals, really) The neighbours of his American old school ancestors would bring more technology to the yard. "I hear there's good eating on those. What a helpfully big target. Where's my flintlock."
Also, and Mattel soft toys are to blame for this, the squirrel is a hard sell as a smouldericious alpha hero. Snuggley, yes, but not Byronic. By the time the book arrived I had doubts.
One of the doubts was whether I'd maybe nitpicked the concept harder than the author had.
So. This is from the back cover blurb. Stew or spouse? It is the dilemma werewolf Soren fights upon taking shapeshifter Daniel as his mate.
Then the book arrived. Here is a quote. As squirrels said, he was nuts about the wolf.
More thinky thoughts. Is it worth getting angry about dub-con being presented as lurrrve when (a) this is not kitchen sink realism and (b) this is astonishingly badly written not-realism.
The dialogue is a bit stilted. "We're both mammals, and sheep are familiar with wolf anatomy." We have as-you-know-bob scenes like the one where a were squirrel M.D. explains to a werewolf what being a shapeshifter means in medical terms. We have uncomfortable-making smut. Soren the wolf has no personality at all. Soren looked like an ancient god, strong, unfathomably fearless.." It goes on, purplishly, but I was so thrown by unfathomably in that sentence that I lost the thread. Daniel the squirrel's characterisation consists of him having the speech patterns of Mr Spock. Now, who would have thought of that? Here are his first reported words "I am truly enthused that Shiloh can at last rejoice with his mate and child."
The pacing goes from awkward small talk (1st page of story) to molestation (2nd page etc) quicker than a Top Gear car. Given Daniel's speech patterns, Soren may have been trying to shut him up. This is book 3 out of a series of novellas, so it's more like an episode than a self contained thing; the beginning abrupt and the ending not feeling very conclusive.
I can't really comment on the sex scenes. You know how Mills & Boon used to do it - all whirling and overwhelming and vortexes and then you said decisively, yes, I will buy this jacuzzi and got a bit disorientated when a body part got name checked (O, wait, not a jacuzzi review I'm reading.) This was more tab A into slot B, as far as I can tell. Try as I might I kept skim-reading the shagging, even when I went back in a homework frame of mind and tried to concentrate. The sex that punctuated this kicked off very abruptly. One minute it was all about the guest list for a child's party, the next, trail of garments. He grinned when his mate chirp-screamed in pleasure and massaged Daniel's special spot. Sex is such a silly thing to do with your body that reading it in cold blood (maybe it would have worked if I cared about the characters but I didn't and it didn't) is a weird feeling. I'm dead impressed by anyone who does write effective sex because when it fails it's even flatter than unsuccessful comedy.
By the way, the wereshark mafioso - his name is Heathcliff - can't take his animal form on land. It's fun to see them give a friendly wave to the laws of physics.
I hoped this would be gloriously terrible but was only half right. Still, I brought it on myself. N, on the other hand, is going to be an innocent victim. Wish him well.