Review--Still Life with Shape-Shifter

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Still Life with Shapeshifter (Shifting Circle, #2)Still Life with Shapeshifter by Sharon Shinn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A lovely, bittersweet story about ordinary people with ordinary lives--they work at middle class jobs, they worry about paying their bills, they love their families. The difference in their lives is, some of them are shape-shifters.

There aren't any villains in this novel. No vampire councils, no wolf packs, just people like Melanie and Brody. Melanie's spent her life protecting her half-sister Ann, a shape-shifter who turns into a white husky. Brody's a free-lance writer (introduced in The Shape of Desire) working on a book about shifters, and he wants information from Melanie about Ann.

Melanie and Brody's relationship grows in a slow, thoughtful fashion that seems quite real, and as Melanie realizes Ann is changing in a way where Melanie won't be able to protect her anymore, Brody and her friends are there for her.

I thought I was burned out by paranormal books, but Shinn gives us something more with the characters, a depth and maturity missing from many other novels. They're reminiscent of Maggie Stiefvater's books and will be appreciated by readers who enjoyed her Shiver series.


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