Question: What do you get when you cross Harry Dresden with Carrie Bradshaw? Answer: WHO THE MONSTERS ARE main character, Raine Waller. Raine is a Scottish-born member of the Vanatori, a Shadowhunters-type organization committed to ridding the world of the secretive dragon shapeshifters known as the Drakul. On a routine mission to gather intel, Raine saves a man named Jay from a Drakul, then immediately falls in love with him (Jay, not the dragon). Overcome with gratitude, Jay promises information that could be the key to finishing the Drakul, a welcome prospect for Raine, whose parents were murdered by the monsters. Yet some parts of Jay’s story don’t add up. Is his appearance a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to end the Drakul forever? Or is Jay working with the Vanatori’s foes to lead Raine and her team into a trap?
The first book in a planned series, Nadine Little’s WHO THE MONSTERS ARE is reminiscent of other urban fantasy series, especially Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files. Little’s world feels fully developed, especially when she puts her own spin on tried-and-true myths, as in her description of Lessers, which are people bitten by dragons in human form who have only transformed their teeth. That fact plus the name “Drakul,” she tells us, “is how the vampire myth originated.” Raine also indulges in quite a lot of Harry Dresden’s world-weary sarcasm, as when she describes America as a place “where buying a gun is almost as easy as buying a pint of milk.” Or her Argentinian colleague Sofia as “stunning in a figure-hugging red dress that will get her arrested for indecent exposure if she so much as bends over.”
Unlike Butcher, however, Little isn’t primarily concerned with humor. Or monsters. Or magic. On her website, she remarks, “Sometimes, I let [my characters] have sex (who am I kidding, it’s all the time).” We first see this frisky fixation on page six, when Raine says about Jay, on first encountering him, “Man those cheekbones.” After that, we never go more than a few pages without Raine flirting with Jay or imagining him naked or telling Sofia how much she wants to sleep with him. When they finally do have sex, the scene is straight out of Johanna Lindsey, complete with the revelation that Jay is a (gulp) virgin who nevertheless rocks Raine’s world.
Part monster-hunting urban fantasy, part read-it-in-a-tub-by-candlelight shagfest, Nadine Little’s WHO THE MONSTERS ARE has something to satisfy fans of multiple genres.
~Anthony Aycock for IndieReader