Someone You Can Build a Nest In

February 5, 2024
Wiswell’s grisly debut monster romance confronts familial abuse, otherness, and healing from trauma. Three human monster hunters surprise flesh-eating shape-shifter Shesheshen during her annual hibernation and poison her with a crossbow bolt soaked in rosemary before she can consume them. Weak from hunger and incomplete rest, Shesheshen—disguised as a human—hunts for food, as she must assimilate both organic and inorganic matter to maintain her body’s structures and function. After she is unmasked and driven off a cliff, human woman Homily finds her and treats her injuries without realizing that Shesheshen is a monster. Attracted to Homily’s selflessness, Shesheshen considers turning her savior into a self-sacrificing nest for her eggs. Both Shesheshen and Homily struggle with secrets they’re keeping from each other, but as their association brings them afoul of powerful enemies, their painful pasts catch up with them. There’s a potent emotional core to this blood-soaked tale, but the occasionally shaky worldbuilding muddles the message. Still, readers looking for dark and distinctive romantic fantasy will want to check this out. Agent: Hannah Bowman, Liza Dawson Assoc.

February 1, 2024

Wiswell won the Nebula for his short story "Open House on Haunted Hill." He makes his full-length novel debut with this queer romantic fantasy, a creepy yet heartwarming story in which monster-slayer Homily falls in love with Shesheshen, a shapeshifting monster--all told from Shesheshen's perspective. Prepub Alert.

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Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 1, 2024
A shapeshifting monster finds love with a human whose family hopes to exterminate her kind in this mix of fantasy, horror, and romance. Shesheshen's yearly hibernation is interrupted when a group of monster hunters disrupts the makeshift nest she's made in the bowels of a ruined manor. She typically takes the form of an amorphous blob, but quick thinking leads her to construct a more humanoid appearance to trick the nosy hunters. Her hard work, constructing a new body from the remains of past feasts, isn't convincing enough, and she's driven off a cliff to her death. Her saving grace comes in the form of Homily, who nurses Shesheshen back to health, fully believing the alien creature is simply a young woman just like her. Homily's nurturing ministrations cause Shesheshen to feel something foreign to her: love. However, Shesheshen begins to realize that her version of love doesn't quite align with the very human Homily's. Shesheshen wants to be honest with Homily and reveal her true form, until Homily confides that she's a monster hunter of sorts, determined to seek revenge on a shapeshifter who cursed her family. In the realm of monster romances, Shesheshen is quite physically different from the typical humanoid love interests. For example, the book's title is a direct reflection of the way Shesheshen initially wants to communicate her affection for Homily: by injecting the woman with her eggs until the young hatch and inevitably eat her from the inside. Shesheshen makes for an interesting narrator, as readers experience these new feelings and sensations right along with her. Seeing her find ways to describe and parse new emotions like friendship and love is often more interesting than the romance itself. Referring to this merely as both an opposites-attract and a secret-enemies-to-lovers romance doesn't quite encapsulate the bizarro narrative that debut novelist Wiswell has created. While inventive enough to push the boundaries of romance and dark fantasy, this may appeal mainly to niche genre-fiction fans. A wonderfully weird horror romance that requires an acquired taste and a strong stomach.

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