Someone You Can Build A Nest In by John Wiswell

Publisher – Jo Fletcher Books

Published – Out Now

Price – £20 hardback £9.99 Kindle eBook

Shesheshen has made a mistake fatal to all monsters: she's fallen in love.

Shesheshen is a shapeshifter, who happily resides as an amorphous lump at the bottom of a ruined manor. When her rest is interrupted by hunters intent on murdering her, she constructs a body from the remains of past meals: a metal chain for a backbone, borrowed bones for limbs, and a bear trap as an extra mouth.

However, the hunters chase Shesheshen out of her home and off a cliff. Badly hurt, she's found and nursed back to health by Homily, a warm-hearted human, who has mistaken Shesheshen as a fellow human. Homily is kind and nurturing and would make an excellent co-parent: an ideal place to lay Shesheshen's eggs so their young could devour Homily from the inside out. But as they grow close, she realizes humans don't think about love that way.

Shesheshen hates keeping her identity secret from Homily, but just as she's about to confess, Homily reveals why she's in the area: she's hunting a shapeshifting monster that supposedly cursed her family. Has Shesheshen seen it anywhere?

Eating her girlfriend isn't an option. Shesheshen didn't curse anyone, but to give herself and Homily a chance at happiness, she has to figure out why Homily's twisted family thinks she did. As the hunt for the monster becomes increasingly deadly, Shesheshen must unearth the truth quickly, or soon both of their lives will be at risk.

And the bigger challenge remains: surviving her toxic in-laws long enough to learn to build a life with, rather than in, the love of her life.

A tale as old as time is that of beauty and the beast. An ever-evolving tale from the idea that young girls should not fear future husbands to these tales of that there is more than just appearances. The ideas of humans and monsters is an evolving and modern readers know exactly who is who, is a much more subtler balance. This is a theme explored in John Wiswell’s Someone You Can Build A Nest In but ultimately I found the delivery lacking.

SheSheShen is rudely awakened from hibernation by people seeking her to kill her as they believe her to be a wicked monster. They are soon despatched (and eaten) but she dons a human(ish) form to investigate in the human town nearby but is discovered and soon on the run injured. She is rescued and tended to by Homily and a bond is soon formed. But Homily is related to the family that was sent to kill her and Homily is sworn to kill the monster. Things are about to get messy.

Ok so I can see readers enjoy this. It’s brisk, Wisell plays the comedy of SheShesHen not understanding humans and saying one thing that humans take another. There is certainly an angle of unconventional people rejected by families finding their own happiness. It flies through and for the core a happy ending beckons. However, I found a lot of problems with the story. It is very predictable, which is an issue of mine for reading a lot of stories but one third in made the beats feels a little too familiar – oh I know who the villain is within a few moments of meeting them. While it can be brisk it for me feels a much shorter tale of novella length stretched out.

The romance is sweet enough but I didn’t find the characters that interesting and everything feels fairly instant and simple as does every obstacle in the way and SheSheShen’s abilities are extensive and easily handle situations most of the time which reduces any threat. For a comedy horror the horror is fairly light body horror. The comedy is also quite light and sparse rather than skilled. The monstrous family of Homily for me doesn’t really work as a threat. They’re soon getting despatched and yet I didn’t care. A Horror story would have made them fearsome and deserving of fates. A Dark Comedy should make them stylised grotesques that you despise for good reason and we enjoy their messy deaths. Here it is more oh they say nasty things and then soon most are dead…what a shame oh well life moves on and as one is a very young emotionally damaged child that feels an odd choice to ignore or not delve into. In a novella I could probably grab this but a novel length tale needs a bit more for me to hang onto and here I felt this is a story trying to sit between the two and not hitting it.

My tastes in stories are a little more darker and thematic-based so as stated I can see other reader enjoy this. I don’t however think this is a story that lasts in the memory and could have done a bit more in those areas to really take some chances. For me a disappointment