Nenekiri Bookwyrm

Claw was a delight to read, and the stories a breath of fresh air. The variety of stories is great with plots involving secret church groups, casual dates, superheroes facing off against supervillains, and even a re-telling of a classic fairy tale with a twist. I found myself engaged with the characters and felt like a majority were fleshed out quite well. In that way where you can imagine them existing outside of the context of their respective stories. I'm happy to see more fiction that works on lifting up and empowering women's voices as well and eagerly await the next entry.

A wonderful fantasy adventure that stars a trans character center stage. I really fell in love with all the characters in the book. Verse, Xan, Cecelia, Basil, and Karina were great to follow throughout the course of the story. Two things to know upfront about the book. One of the main character's, Verse, speaks in an accent in all of their dialogue. I found that I was translating their speech patterns soon after the first few pages but I'm aware that can be a turn-off for folks. I think it's a neat way to show that this character is speaking in a language they're unfamiliar with, but I digress. Second thing to know is that this story is dense. There is a lot of love and attention put into this book and the world of Elancia and it shines through. As such, there is also a lot of ground that gets covered throughout the story and concepts are thrown out at the reader at a fairly brisk pace. I think where Shifting Tides shines the most is in the way it handles how the characters react to being a part of a world that is ending. The process is slow, but it's still happening, and how each character reacts to it feeds into the narrative. One of my favorite bits in the book are the chapters where the author takes a moment to focus on one of the five main characters in a section that is meant to give more background on that particular character. These chapters give the author the space to show what that character is about and who they are in the midst of this much larger story. Alongside the main plot, there is a subplot of Verse finding out more about their past and what role they have in everything. This book leaves a lot of that information as questions for the future, but I enjoyed the answers we were given by the conclusion of this first book in the series. If you're interested in reading more fiction starring LGBTQ+ characters navigating a dying fantasy world I would absolutely recommend picking this up and giving it a try.