Review: Moose Madness, by Mar Delaney

Publisher:	Kalikoi
Copyright:	May 2021
ASIN:	B094HGT1ZB
Format:	Kindle
Pages:	68

Moose Madness is a sapphic shifter romance novella (on the short side for a novella) by the same author as Wolf Country. It was originally published in the anthology Her Wild Soulmate, which appears to be very out of print. Maggie (she hates the nickname Moose) grew up in Moose Point, a tiny fictional highway town in (I think) Alaska. (There is, unsurprisingly, an actual Moose Point in Alaska, but it's a geographic feature and not a small town.) She stayed after graduation and is now a waitress in the Moose Point Pub. She's also a shifter; specifically, she is a moose shifter like her mother, the town mayor. (Her father is a fox shifter.) As the story opens, the annual Moose Madness festival is about to turn the entire town into a blizzard of moose kitsch. Fiona Barton was Maggie's nemesis in high school. She was the cool, popular girl, a red-headed wolf shifter whose friend group teased and bullied awkward and uncoordinated Maggie mercilessly. She was also Maggie's impossible crush, although the very idea seemed laughable. Fi left town after graduation, and Maggie hadn't thought about her for years. Then she walks into Moose Point Pub dressed in biker leathers, with piercings and one side of her head shaved, back in town for a wedding in her pack. Much to the shock of both Maggie and Fi, they realize that they're soulmates as soon as their eyes meet. Now what? If you thought I wasn't going to read the moose and wolf shifter romance once I knew it existed, you do not know me very well. I have been saving it for when I needed something light and fun. It seemed like the right palette cleanser after a very disappointing book. Moose Madness takes place in the same universe as Wolf Country, which means there are secret shifters all over Alaska (and presumably elsewhere) and they have the strong magical version of love at first sight. If one is a shifter, one knows immediately as soon as one locks eyes with one's soulmate and this feeling is never wrong. This is not my favorite romance trope, but if I get moose shifter romance out of it, I'll endure. As you can tell from the setup, this is enemies-to-lovers, but the whole soulmate thing shortcuts the enemies to lovers transition rather abruptly. There's a bit of apologizing and air-clearing at the start, but most of the novella covers the period right after enemies have become lovers and are getting to know each other properly. If you like that part of the arc, you will probably enjoy this, but be warned that it's slight and somewhat obvious. There's a bit of tension from protective parents and annoying pack mates, but it's sorted out quickly and easily. If you want the characters to work for the relationship, this is not the novella for you. It's essentially all vibes. I liked the vibes, though! Maggie is easy to like, and Fi does a solid job apologizing. I wish there was quite a bit more moose than we get, but Delaney captures the combination of apparent awkwardness and raw power of a moose and has a good eye for how beautiful large herbivores can be. This is not the sort of book that gives a moment's thought to wolves being predators and moose being, in at least some sense, prey animals, so if you are expecting that to be a plot point, you will be disappointed. As with Wolf Country, Delaney elides most of the messier and more ethically questionable aspects of sometimes being an animal. This is a sweet, short novella about two well-meaning and fundamentally nice people who are figuring out that middle school and high school are shitty and sometimes horrible but don't need to define the rest of one's life. It's very forgettable, but it made me smile, and it was indeed a good palette cleanser. If you are, like me, the sort of person who immediately thought "oh, I have to read that" as soon as you saw the moose shifter romance, keep your expectations low, but I don't think this will disappoint. If you are not that sort of person, you can safely miss this one. Rating: 6 out of 10

Review: Wolf Country, by Mar Delaney

Publisher:	Kalikoi
Copyright:	September 2021
ASIN:	B09H55TGXK
Format:	Kindle
Pages:	144

Wolf Country is a short lesbian shifter romance by Mar Delaney, a pen name for Layla Lawlor (who is also one of the writers behind the shared pen name Zoe Chant). Dasha Volkova is a werewolf, a member of a tribe of werewolves who keep to themselves deep in the wilds of Alaska. She's just become an adult and is wandering, curious and exploring, seeing what's in the world outside of her sheltered childhood. A wild chase after a hare, purely for the fun of it, is sufficiently distracting that she doesn't notice the snare before she steps in it going full speed. Laney Rosen is not a werewolf. She's a landscape painter who lives a quiet and self-contained life in an isolated cabin in the wilderness. She only stumbles across Dasha because she got lost on the snowmobile tracks taking photographs. Laney assumes Dasha is a dog caught in a poacher's trap, and is quite surprised when the pain of getting her out of the snare causes Dasha to shapeshift into a naked woman. This short book is precisely what it sounds like, which I appreciate in a romance novel. Woman meets wolf and discovers her secret accidentally, woman is of course entirely trustworthy although wolf can't know that, attraction at first sight, they have to pitch a tent in the wilderness and there's only one sleeping bag, etc. Nothing here is going to surprise you, but it's gentle and kind and fulfills the romance contract of a happy ending. It's not particularly steamy; the focus is on the relationship and the mutual attraction rather than on the sex. The best part of this book is probably the backdrop. Delaney lives in Alaska, and it shows in both the attention to the details of survival and heat and in the landscape descriptions (and the descriptions of Laney's landscapes). Dasha's love of Laney's paintings is one of the most heart-warming parts of the book. Laney has retinitis pigmentosa and is slowly losing her vision, which I thought was handled gracefully and well in the story. It creates real problems and limitations for her, but it also doesn't define her or become central to her character. Both Dasha and Laney are viewpoint characters and roughly alternate tight third-person viewpoint chapters. There are a few twists: potential parental disapproval on Dasha's part and some real physical danger from the person who set the trap, but most of the story is the two woman getting to know each other and getting past the early hesitancy to name what they're feeling. Laney feels a bit older than Dasha just because she's out on her own and Dasha was homeschooled and very sheltered, but both of them feel very young. This is Dasha's first serious relationship. Delaney does use the fated lover trope, which seems worth a warning in case you're not in the mood for that. Werewolves apparently know when they've found their fated mate and don't have a lot of choice in the matter. This is a common paranormal and fantasy romance trope that I find disturbing if I think about it too hard. Thankfully, here it's not much of a distraction. Dasha is such an impulsive, think-with-her-heart sort of character that the immediate conclusion that Laney is her fated mate felt in character even without the werewolf lore. I read this based on a random recommendation from Yoon Ha Lee when I was in the mood for something light and kind and uncomplicated, and I got exactly what I expected and was in the mood for. The writing isn't the best, but the landscape descriptions aren't bad and the characterization is reasonably good if you're in the mood for brightly curious but not particularly wise. Recommended if you're looking for this sort of thing. Rating: 7 out of 10

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