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by John Wiswell
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 impolite monster hunters, 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.
Badly hurt by the hunters, Shesheshen's nursed back to health by Homily, a warm-hearted human. Homily is kind and would make a great co-parent: an ideal place to lay Shesheshen's eggs so their young can devour Homily from the inside out. But as they grow close, Shesheshen realizes that eating her girlfriend isn't an option.
Just as Shesheshen's about to confess her identity, Homily reveals something else: she's hunting a shapeshifting monster that supposedly cursed her family. Has Shesheshen seen it anywhere?
Shesheshen didn't curse anyone, so now she has to figure out why Homily's twisted family thinks she did. As Shesheshen's hunt for the monster becomes increasingly deadly, the bigger challenge remains: learning how to build a life with, rather than in, the woman she loves.
The Nebula Awards, 2025
"Wiswell raises the bar on the outcast as protagonist ... the ultimate monster slayer story, if the monster is just a misunderstood creature searching for love." —Library Journal (starred review)
"A romp that's both bloody and sweet." —Bookpage (starred review)
"Inventive enough to push the boundaries of romance and dark fantasy ... A wonderfully weird horror romance." —Kirkus Reviews
"Someone to Build a Nest In is charming, horrifying, sweet, and funny—everything I could have wanted from John Wiswell's debut novel and more! With the perfect blend of humor and darkness, it's a wholly fresh take on a monster story." —A.C. Wise, author of Hooked
"A beautiful monster story with a heart, Wiswell treats his outcasts as heroes. He is an author the world desperately needs." —J.R. Dawson, author of The First Bright Thing
This information about Someone You Can Build a Nest In was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
John Wiswell is a disabled writer who lives where New York keeps all its trees. He won the 2021 Nebula Award for Short Fiction for his story, "Open House on Haunted Hill," and the 2022 Locus Award for Best Novelette for "That Story Isn't The Story." He has also been a finalist for the Hugo Award, British Fantasy Award, and World Fantasy Award. His fiction has appeared in Uncanny Magazine, Tor.com, the LeVar Burton Reads podcast, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Diabolical Plots, and other fine venues. His debut novel, Someone You Can Build a Nest In, will be published by DAW Books in April 2024. He can be found making too many puns and discussing craft on his Substack, johnwiswell.substack.com.
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