Lyrical Lit Publishing, $2.99, ISBN 978-1310618345
Fantasy Romance, 2015
Okay, I’m going to be very honest here: I picked Alexia Purdy’s Solidify only because for some reason I thought the title on the cover is Sodomy. Since this is a straight romance, I thought it may include scenes of the heroine pegging the hero like a glorious bronco, and I want to be in the front row seat should that ever happen.
Malachi Arend is a brazen loner who wants nothing more than to get the hell out of the small town of Woodland Creek. As he’s leaving, he stumbles across a nurse named Phoebe Reynolds, a newly minted Caladrius shifter who takes the shape of a snow-white bird. She ignites something unexpected inside him, thwarting his attempt to leave.
When a vengeful spirit begins attacking the townspeople, Malachi and Phoebe are drawn into the fray. Phoebe’s transformation could be tied to the attacks, but whoever is responsible might also be seeking to finish what they started, and all of Woodland Creek may pay the price.
This one is part of a series called Woodland Creek, which is the name of this small town where RainFurrest still lives after being banned everywhere else shape-shifters live in peace, away from bothersome humans.
There is no better way to start a romance of a lifetime than to run down one’s destined mate with one’s vehicle, and that’s what happens here. Surly, brooding Malachi Arend rams his vehicle in a non-sexual way into Phoebe Reynolds, sending her feathers flying everywhere; feathers because she can transform into a bird, you see.
A few feet in front of the truck was a woman, naked and with bloodied knees, holding her head between her hands and rocking back and forth as the wind blew her long blond tresses. Her fair skin gleamed under the sun. If it weren’t for the fact I had to cover my ears to fend off her deafening scream, I would have been entranced.
Wait, Malachi will still be entranced with the bloodied knees and all? Does this mean he would wet his underpants with joy if his truck had sent her flying straight into a tree and cracked a skull? I don’t know if I should be excited at what seems like a bloodthirsty hero or to back away slowly now.
Phoebe is a newcomer, and she really has issues, babbling about things being made of stone and other things that don’t make sense at first. Oh, and she also doesn’t remember much about how she ends up in Woodland Creek or why she’s there. She doesn’t even remember that she can become a bird.
Okay, this story confuses me a lot. Maybe it’s because I haven’t read anything else in the series, but the main characters leave me scratching my head with their behavior.
Early on, for example, when Malachi brings the naked and bloodied woman into his truck, he spends his time ogling at her and remarking to me that she doesn’t wear make-up. Shouldn’t he be more concerned about getting her looked at for injuries and such?
When Phoebe realizes that she can’t remember much about anything in her past, she should probably be confused and scared. Instead, she wonders about the owner of the underpants she is given to wear, and how that owner must be clearly lacking in the intellect department if that person could ditch a hot guy like Malachi.
The next few chapters are exposition central as Malachi explains things to Phoebe, and hence the reader, while teaching her about her abilities. Throughout all of this, both characters behave like it’s perfectly normal, their meeting like this. Maybe he has run down many other amnesiac women on a regular basis, and amnesia robs a woman of her ability to feel fear, I don’t know, but these two are behaving way too sanguinely for me to believe the whole thing.
Then, finally, a villain appears, and someone virtuous must sacrifice themselves to kill her for good. Gee, I wonder which person this will be.
Sadly, there are no dark angst or melodramatic chest-beating here, despite the premise and the hero being a contract killer before he settled down to become a brooding furry. The whole thing is set to either sarcasm or sunshine, without any genuine tension or dread. The characters never feel like they are in any danger in spite of the premise, but then again, these characters don’t even emote or behave in a believable manner befitting their situation, so I’m not surprised that the whole thing turns out to be so artificial in terms of feel and tone.
In many ways, Solidify is, er, solid. Under any other circumstances, I suspect I’d enjoy the author’s bouncy narrative and all.
The author’s style and her characters don’t mesh well with the dark premise of the story, however, and reading it gives me this constant sense of disconnect that leaves me tad disoriented. It’s hard to appreciate the story better when I’m feeling that way from the first page to last.
Oh, and no, there is no pegging fun here, sadly. Maybe in another story, another time…
