Westerly Sun Column | Explore ‘Shifters’ Genre at the Library

As someone who isn’t a reader of romance novels, I’ve always been intrigued by the reoccurring tropes that seem so popular, and how they go in and out of fashion. When I started working at the library, for example, I recall books about female main characters falling in love with Scottish highlanders, vicars, and Amish men being particularly in vogue. This thematic element of “forbidden love” is no less popular today, but it has changed slightly. Or, perhaps I should say, shifted.

Novels about “shifters” – humanoid characters who have the ability to physically transform, most often into animals – have been a thing for a while now. People have long had a fascination with humans turning into animals, whether it be the werewolves in “Twilight”, Animagi in “Harry Potter”, or even (to some extent) the Beast in “Beauty and the Beast”, but there has been a huge increase in books specifically about shifters. The genre is often called Urban Fantasy, and features fantastical elements in a contemporary setting, but popular subgenres include Paranormal Romance and Romantasy, which depict romantic relationships with and between supernatural beings. And, let me tell you, they are ALL the rage.

Wolves, lions, and dragons are all popular shifters in these romance books, but there are plenty of other creatures to choose from. The long-running “Psy-Changeling” series by Nalini Singh, which began in 2006 and is still going strong, features leopards, hawks, bears, and even hyenas. It’s something of a classic, and has been credited in part with helping the paranormal romance genre become more mainstream. If the thought of changelings, world building, romance, and eroticism is appealing, you can start at the beginning of the series, with “Slave to Sensation”. Other potential titles of interest include “Hot and Badgered” by Shelly Laurenston, about honey badger shifters, and “Gilded Mess” by Colette Rhodes, which is based on “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” (use your imagination).

Yet another subgenre is Monster Romances, in which one of the main characters or romantic interests is – you got it! – a monster. Orcs, gargoyles, demons, aliens, sasquatches, and basilisks have all made their way into books over the years, but the one that really caught my eye was “Under Loch and Key” by Lana Ferguson, a cheeky romance featuring everyone’s favorite Scottish monster, which Booklist described as having “love scenes hot enough to warm up the coldest Scottish loch.” How do you say no to that?

If none of these are hitting the mark, that doesn’t necessarily mean that shifter romances are not for you. I’d be remiss not to mention a bit of an outlier that a friend recently read, which doesn’t feature creatures so much as…curds? “Why Cheese” by Ellen Mint is a paranormal romance about a quarter of cheese shifters: Roq, Cheddy, Cam, and Brie. If you dig it, Mint released another new book this month: “Bad Seed”, about an eggplant shifter. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: there is truly something for everyone at the library.

by Cassie Skobrak, Adult Services Librarian