by John Wiswell
First sentence: “Each year when Shesheshen hibernated, she dreamed of her childhood nest.”
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Content: There is a lot of gore and a high body count, plus a lot of swearing, including f-bombs. It’s in the Science Fiction/Fantasy section of the bookstore.

Shesheshen is a shapeshifter, residing outside the town of Underlook. Sure, she kills people once in a while, but a monster has got to eat. But, one day she is rudely awakened by monster hunters who gravely injure her. (Rosemary. Who knew?) She rushes off (after killing one of them, of course) and finds Homily, a human who is extraordinarily kind. Unfortunately, Homily believes that the monster of Underlook has cursed her family, and so is hunting it. Shesheshen is sure she hasn’t cursed anyone, but since she’s coming to like Homily, she decides to stay and help. Things unravel from there.

This is a hard plot to summarize, because not much happens. On one hand, it’s a simple love story: two characters coming to love themselves and each other and figure out ways to stand together against the world. (Ah, the villain of the story is a doozy.) It’s very simple, but it’s also very weird. To make the monster – to make someone as odd, weird, and potentially scary – the main character is a remarkable thing. Sure, people are dying, people are scared of Shesheshen, but she just wants to live her life. It’s weird, it’s sweet, it’s violent, and it’s charming.

I adored it.