Katie: So, I get this email from Patty telling me about this book that she’s come across that HAS to be our next review. I’m skeptical, but since she was willing to pay, I couldn’t say no.
I was very pleasantly surprised to really enjoy the first forty pages or so of Wriggle and Sparkle by Megan Derr. Enough so that I messaged her at 730 in the morning:
Patty: I don’t… I’m not sure how to… So there’s a kraken and a unicorn and they are both shifters so they are human-looking most of the time and Katie has to do the summary because I don’t even know where to begin. It was weird and funny and cute and weird but oddly relatable, even though IT WAS ABOUT A KRAKEN AND A UNICORN.
Katie: Wriggle is the kraken (obviously), and he’s on the homicide squad of the paranormal branch of the FBI. (It has its own alphabet, but who really cares what it is?) Sparkle is a unicorn who has just transferred over from the white collar division.
They fall in instant snarky lust after being assigned together as partners, and they’re just amusing and delightful. That is until you realize that
THIS
Plus this
… equals tentacle sex involving multiple orifices. Talk about a major ick factor. There’s talk of tentacles with and without suckers, an oily residue so no lube required, and the fact that krakens (and therefore Wriggle) are gender fluid and make that choice every time they shift shape. That last part I actually find to be a very interesting idea, with all kinds of possibilities. Not only does that open a up a variety of possibilities for the naughty bits, it makes identity swaps possible as a plot point AND opens the conversation to how you love the person for WHOM they are, not WHAT they are.
Katie: This was a really well written collection of novellas if you can get past the icky sex. I’ll prove it to you. Here’s my favorite quote from the book:
Katie: The mysteries in each installment were better than your average mystery in a romance. The supporting characters were decent, if not particularly well fleshed out. I liked that it worked both as a collection of novellas and as a complete novel. You could read one 120-page bon bon and be satisfied, or the whole thing, depending on your time. It would probably be an excellent purchase if you ride a commuter train or something of that sort.