CONVERSATION: Thoughts on Shifters
Recently Sirius emailed the rest of us with questions to start a new conversation. The discussion went long enough that we are splitting it into two parts. The second half, which is chock full of book recommendations, can be found here. — Janine
Sirius: Hi all, here are some questions on the topic of shifters.
Do you like shifters in general in your books? Why or why not?
Which characterization of shifters you prefer (once again if you enjoy them in general) – shifters as mostly humans with some animalistic characteristics or shifters as mostly Others (I am thinking of Anne Bishop’s books here – her shifters feel way more alien to me than I usually like)?
Have you ever read a book where you found shifters to be completely unnecessary part of the plot/characterizations?
Do you like shifters? Why or why not?
Sirius: I love love shifters in theory, but I find very few stories where I am satisfied with the execution of their stories/characterizations. I love them simply because to me it adds more fun to the characterizations, more interesting things character can do, the powers they may have.
I am peculiar about mating bond which usually shown in the books about werewolves (I love werewolves, but really give me any more or less interesting shifter and I will try to read the book). I like the love and bond to develop together or even love develops first. I am not very keen on – I am your mate that’s why we love each other forever kind of thing. So it is basically hard to please me.
Janine: I have kind of evolved on animal shifters. Before I read Nalini Singh and Patricia Briggs I was *not* an animal shifter person. I didn’t like the animalistic, uncontrolled / uncontrollable aspect of them; it was a real turnoff for me.
(True story: When I was twelve, I paid my eight-year-old brother a nickel an episode not to turn on “The Incredible Hulk”. Every time Bill Bixby started getting angry and Lou Ferrigno boiled out of his clothes in a frenzy I wanted to hide under the table. Luckily my brother was too young to understand that a nickel was not very much.)
One of my favorite things in shifter books is the way the protagonist’s animal form can be used to portray acceptance. At their best, animal (and particularly wolf) shifter stories can be a metaphor for acceptance–the wolf represents the other person’s messy parts, what might be scary and vulnerable and flawed in them. That easy acceptance of the other person’s wolf despite its being a dangerous animal represents safety. That messy part is not a flawed piece to fear or to reject, it is something to be loved and cherished. And that sometimes extends to self-acceptance because if the shifter’s messy parts can be accepted by the one they love, then maybe they can also accept them themselves.
Sirius: I also prefer shifters portrayed as humans who have/ are struggling to/ learned to accept their animalistic parts – in whatever way authors choose to portray them.
Jennie: I love your Hulk story, Janine! I think that show was very briefly Friday night appointment television for me.
I’m sure I’ve read various shifter books over the years, but most of them aren’t that memorable. So my main point of contact with the genre has been the Nalini Singh Psy/Changeling books. (Oh, I just remembered, there are some shifters in Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse series, but they aren’t the main focus – that would be the vampires.)
One I thing I don’t like about wolf shapeshifting books, at least, is the roles that loosely mimic BDSM scenarios with “dominant” and “submissive” wolves (I am emphatically not into BDSM stories).
Even though I’ve read all 21 full books in the Nalini Singh Psy/Changeling series, I remain ambivalent on shifters, at least *her* shifters. Over the years I’ve often complained about how romanticized the Changelings are in the series, especially in contrast to the Psy. There’s something that I don’t love about the championing of animalistic instinct over supposedly cold intellect. I do think (maybe assume, given my limited knowledge of them) that a lot of shifter books romanticize that aspect, and that part of what makes shifters appealing to a lot of readers are those anthropomorphized animal qualities – loyalty, passion, instinct (the same way that vampire romances often idealize obsessive love, I guess).
Layla: I’m not a fan–in my head at least–of ‘shifter’ books. But practically speaking, I love books with werewolves. There is something sexy about the way the wolves are powerful, intelligent predators that are also intensely social and collective. I like that they are attractive and fit and dominant in human form. I also like the idea of duality–there is something secret or concealed about werewolf groups who have to live in secret as one thing, and in public as another.
Kaetrin: I read less shifter romance than I used to. I used to read quite a bit but I got bored and it tailed off. I’m more likely to pick up a new shifter book if there’s buzz about it or it comes from a trusted author but there are some I’ll read or listen to every time.
Jayne: I’m more in the “not a fan of shifters” club. Back 12-14 years ago when paranormals took over Romancelandia, every other book had a vampire/shifter/whatever theme and I just got sick of them. They weren’t ever my favorite and having them everywhere was too much. Add to this the fact that as the theme was hot, lots of authors who might not have written paranormals started writing them and some of those books just weren’t that good or the PNR aspect seemed forced.
Looking back at our reviews, I went from 2009 to 2019 and only read three books I labeled as shapeshifters.
Then there’s this review. The tags for it caused my uncaffeinated brain to short circuit and led to a whole comment thread of funny.
Do you prefer shifters who are mostly humans with some animalistic characteristics or shifters who are less human?
Janine: This ties into what you asked about shifters who are more alien/animal versus ones who are more human, Sirius. Like anything, it depends on execution, but I generally prefer them less Other. Lia Silver’s Prisoner was a book I liked where the werewolf hero’s humanity was emphasized. He was held prisoner and experimented on in a lab, and the doctors were the true monsters.
I didn’t like the first Anne Bishop’s Written in Red, the first in her Others series, because the shifters really were other. They ate humans and (yikes) sold their flesh at the butcher shop. In Maria Vale’s first Legend of All Wolves series book, The Last Wolf, members of the heroine’s community (including the heroine herself) live underground, eat raw meat (refusing to eat cooked meat, which they refer to as “carrion”), and let kids as old as nine crawl on all four in their human form. I was so turned off I couldn’t keep going.
I had issues with one of the books in Carolyn Jewel’s My Immortals series, too–the demon hero has sex with the heroine in his (alien and animal-like) form. I’m not comfortable reading about humans having sex with animals even when the animal is their sentient partner and the sex is consensual.
Sirius: I don’t like to see shifters as mostly others. Janine, funny you mentioned this. I thought the first book of Anne Bishop’s series was exceptional and thought that her shifters would work for me, but this little “quirk ” of theirs – snacking on humans’ meat – I just could not get past. I would tell myself that I would continue reading over and over again and I just could not make myself.
Janine: I thought Written in Red was just plain bad even outside of eating humans, but that was the worst part of the book for me. I’m sure it doesn’t help that I’m vegan. Even a heroine thinking of cooked meat as disgusting “carrion” and eating only raw meat, as in Maria Vale’s books, really turns me off.
Sirius: Since I am reading more m/m romance though, I can share why I RARELY find the shifter books that I am happy with. Most werewolf shifter books I am seeing have Alpha, Omega portrayed in a way that gets Omega pregnant and I am REALLY not interested in male pregnancy. Those books sell well, and more power and happy reading to their fans it is just I am most emphatically NOT one.
Non-Wolf Shifters
Layla: I have to examine more why I have a distaste for that word–shifter. I think it’s because I associate it with some really outlandish (sorry no offense to anyone, outlandish to me!) books that make me shudder—the stuff people make fun of romance readers for supposedly reading. I’m thinking ones where there is a dinosaur shifter or an Orca whale, or what have you. There is something monstrous and grotesque about those to me.
Janine: I see shifters as any kind of changelings or other beings who can change shape. Werewolves, leopards, dragons and selkies are some examples. Sure, there are some more unusual ones but they are the exception.
Sirius: To me shifters are any characters that change their form from human to something else and of course in my head they belong to fantasy/fantasy romance overall.
And yes, sometimes authors write shifters from whom I would run away screaming. Try snake shifter? Argh, that book was at least amusing, but I don’t remember anything else and yes I saw the description with cockroach shifter once. Yes, I screamed and ran.
I remember talking about shifters with someone else and she was saying about a book with a chicken shifter that all she wanted to do was to eat the damn thing lol.
Are Shifters Always Integral to the Story?
Janine: Sirius, I wanted to follow up on this question of yours:
Have you ever read a book where you found shifters to be completely unnecessary part of the plot/characterizations?
Nothing comes to mind for me. You?
Sirius: No, I have not, I was just curious. I had seen many issues with the shifters books I have tried, but I could not take shifters out and put regular people in there and not have the book fall apart.
What about you, readers? What do you like and dislike about shifter stories? Do you prefer shifters portrayed as closer to human or as closer to animal/other? What are your thoughts on the more unusual species of shifters? Have you ever read a book that would still have worked if the shifter characters had been human instead?
I suppose I miss out on some great stories, but I’m not even slightly interested in reading about sentient beings who change between human and other animal forms.
My first & best choice of fantasy has shifters as the vibrant main characters. When writers manage that rare thing; the believable juxtaposition of the magic of shifting form rooted in the reality of an every day life- I am there cheering them on. I think there is a lot of lazy dross in this field so I don’t get to cheer that often. These are my most precious rereads from a mixed library – Infected series / Andrea Speed, The Others Series / Anne Bishop (first 2 books)
& not in the traditional shifter genre but the just delicious Forthright’s Amaranthine series – the first book “Tsumiko and the Enslaved Fox” is that rare thing – perfection.
I enjoyed this post (and the Penguin shifter link). I am definitely eager to see part two with the many recommendations.
I’m not an analytical reader, so I won’t attempt to answer your questions. I do like a number of books with shifters including the Others books by Anne Bishop, the Alpha and Omegas stories by Patricia Briggs, and Dragon Bound by Thea Harrison.
@Raine Cole, I’m off to download a sample of “Tsumiko and the Enslaved Fox”.
One more favorite book is Parker’s Sanctuary: A Guardsmen Novel by Cooper West. This includes dog shifters; it’s a male/male romance.
The above has a free prequel — Rescued: A “Parker’s Sanctuary” Story by Cooper West.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07251DF9W/ref=dbs_a_def_awm_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i0
@LML: I am not even slightly interested in horror books and movies, I may be missing on some great stories, but I am totally okay with it, so I get it completely :).@Raine Cole: Yes! I think this is perfectly said and I get to agree about it “the believable juxtaposition of the magic of shifting form rooted in the reality of an every day life” and I also see it so rarely.
I love Forthright too and I am pretty sure I reviewed Tsumiko here , but yes, those are not traditional shifters to me, although I guess they come as close as possibly can.
@Sirius: I don’t see any review from you (or anyone else) for Tsumiko but I’d love to read one.
@Jayne: oh my did I only think about it and never actually did ? Will rectify :)
I’m not huge fan of shifter romances, but I don’t pass them up when I find ones written by good writers. I’ve enjoyed Kati Wilde’s TEACHER’S PET WOLF (both MCs are wolf shifters) and am looking forward to her upcoming SHERIFF’S BAD BEAR (I believe only the hero is a shifter—a bear shifter). Wilde’s earlier BEAUTY IN SPRING is an erotic novella about a woman who discovers her childhood friend has become a wolf shifter—and how she helps him come to terms with the wolf side of his personality. And I’ve really enjoyed Cate C. Wells’s THE TYRANT ALPHA’S REJECTED MATE—one of my favorite romances of any sub-genre in 2021. I’m looking forward to other books in Wells’s Quarry Pack series (there’s a female character who, when she shifts, becomes a male wolf—I’m especially interested in seeing how their story plays out). TL;DR: how much I enjoy a shifter romance all depends on the writer’s skill.
I’ve read the Tsumiko book and it’s great! Btw, the element of shifter books that I like and this is probably an obvious point, but the transformative effect or possibility. I was thinking that in a way, that’s the heart of the beauty and the beast story. I also like the more physical nature of shifters— their reliance on touch, on community or pack ( in werewolf case), their intense emotional bonds. Is it regressive of me to say I like dominance and strength in male character ?
I seem to be in the minority here but Tsumiko and the Enslaved Fox wasn’t for me and I didn’t finish it. The writing seemed kind of simplistic.
@Janine: I liked the idea of the book— and the fox character— but I will say as a romance it was weak. It wasn’t super romantic for me it read more like a mix of manga and fantasy.
@Layla:
I don’t think so. Genre fiction, and romance especially, is influenced by fantasies and speaks to readers on that level to a degree. And fantasies are not a thing we control, or at least, not entirely. We often develop them very early in life. The fantasy of a strong and dominant male character is quite commonplace (not just in female fantasies either, for example you often see them in thrillers written by men), so much so that I think there must be something about our world, our species, or both that led to that.
I often see readers criticized for what they read and don’t read and I personally don’t view that as good or as helpful. There’s a long history of policing what women read and I see it very much in that context. Further it can be counter-productive and make readers draw away (in an effort, whether conscious or unconscious, to protect their autonomy) from the very choices those people who bring up these things would like to see them make. IMO there are nuanced and thoughtful conversations to be had—and it would be good to have them—about what makes a book problematic. But I don’t think readers should be judged for what they read (judging the books is a different story) or labeled as regressive for what they choose to read.
@LML: Can you say why you don’t care for shifter books? I would love to hear from readers about why they find them a turnoff as well as why they like them.
@Raine Cole: I agree about the juxtaposition of the everyday and the magical. Oftentimes when an author pulls that off in urban fantasy and paranormal romances, the books are amazing. I think I fell in love with Ilona Andrews’ book On the Edge when Rose, the heroine (her little brother is a shifter BTW!), added flour to the ground meat when she was making burger patties because she couldn’t afford to spend much money on food. There was something so real about that detail.
@Kareni: I laughed my head off when I saw the tag on the penguin shifter post.
@Sirius: Same here re: horror. It’s probably my least favorite genre (I don’t do westerns either). The only horror movie I remember ever enjoying was “The Sixth Sense,” (I did love it) and that was a one-hit wonder for its director.
@Jayne: I think there may have been a review at Smart Bitches. I know Ilona Andrews wrote about it on the IA blog.
@DiscoDollyDeb: Do you have any other shifter recs? I’ve tried Wilde and Wells and neither one is for me. Your Heated Rivalry recommendation worked out for me in spades though, so I’m open to more.
@Janine: sorry—those are the only shifter romances that pop into my head right now.
@Janine: Agree that writing was simplistic but I thought that it very much suited the story. I also remembered why I never posted my review here . I read the book because Ilona Andrews recommended it, so I obviously did not think I could say anything more interesting than what she already did :). I still think I posted something on GR, now I am curious and will check it out.@Layla: I am pretty sure she listed certain anime as initial huge inspiration for her stories. I don’t remember which one it was, not trying to hide it.
I have Tsumiko and the Enslaved Fox on my TBR – I must bump it up.
I remember finding books that seemed to be about shifters only because they wanted a dominant alpha male. I read one where the man was borderline stalkerish, but the narrator said it was okay because he wasn’t human. That’s just the way shifters are, and that turned me off. But I do love Shelly Laurenston’s books, except I have to skip some of the fight scenes. I think it is the kick ass women and men who love them aspect that I like.
I read my first shifter series recently, Charlie Adhara’s Big Bad Wolf, because I had heard good things about it, and I was curious. I wondered how representative it is of wolf shifter romances? Is it typical for a wolf to mate with a human? Is it typical for one to be the alpha and the other to be more submissive and part of his/her pack? Is it typical for the human to hang and out and cuddle with the wolf in his animal form? (To me this seemed like petting your dog, but the idea of having sex with your dog after it shifts into human form really put me off.) I have to say I found the first couple of books interesting and kind of fun, but I got increasingly uncomfortable as I went along. The human and the shifter will always be different from each other in fundamental ways that the other cannot understand. Also, I do not like relationships where one partner is clearly dominant and the other submissive. So wolf shifters may not be for me. I wonder if there might be other types of shifter romances which would address these issues? For example, a romance between two shifters of the same type, without the dominant/submissive dynamic.
@RebeccaA: I think that was a bigger trend at one time but still is out there–the shifter who is a borderline stalker. There have always been heroes like these in romance but I think as it was called out more these heroes moved to the paranormal genre because the alternate world setting makes it easier for many readers to accept. That said, there are plenty of shifter heroes who aren’t at all like that. I have not read Laurenston but I remember that Robin (Janet), a former DA reviewer, was fond of them for the strong heroines also.
@Becky: I have not read the Adhara books so I can’t say how representative they are of the genre but here are some replies to your other questions.
In my experience it is very common but not always the case by any means.
Same as above. Also I would say this used to be more common than it is now.
Very much so.
I can see that and I think maybe I felt that way slightly when I read my first shifter romances but it doesn’t bother me now and in fact I like it. I like it because of what I mentioned above — the animal half represents what may be messy / thought dangerous / unwanted by others in the shifter, and the other character’s acceptance of that animal symbolizes acceptance of these things. I find that romantic–the idea that what others reject is not feared by this one person, or what this one person once was reticent of is now welcome and loved.
With that said, sex with the shifter when it is in its non-human form is usually off putting to me, though there have been rare instances where I’ve been okay with it. Shana Abe’s books where both characters are dragons and they mate in the sky (it isn’t shown, just alluded to) come to mind.
Yes, absolutely, there are. In the other thread a few of us recommended The Smoke Thief by Shana Abe. Both characters are dragon shifters and I would consider them an alpha / alpha pairing. That’s a lot of what makes that romance so riveting. I haven’t read it in years though. Most of the later books in this series are also about dragon / dragon pairings with no humans involved.
I think you might find Patricia Briggs’ novella Alpha and Omega and its first sequel, Cry Wolf, interesting for the way she examines the dominance issue (both characters are wolves) in the context of a relationship’s development. You discover as you go along that though the heroine thinks she’s a submissive, she’s actually completely outside the hierarchy, it’s just that she’s been beaten down (not by the hero). The hero is dominant but because she is outside the hierarchy it doesn’t enter into their relationship except in the sense that it gives him a lot of power in their pack network and others fear him, and so she wonders if she should fear him. But he never tries to dominate her in any way, in fact he works very hard to respect her boundaries and give her space when she needs it. In many ways the power divide between them should be too wide but somehow it isn’t. It’s one of the things I find really romantic with this couple.
Caressed by Ice by Nalini Singh, one of the ones I recommended in the other thread, is also interesting because it’s the heroine who is the werewolf in that one (the hero is a psy and has a human form) and she is also the one pursuing the hero instead of the other way around. It works really well because she’s a trauma survivor and if he had tried to dominate her it would have been ugh. Also she in pursuing him she is breaking away from the overprotectiveness of her brothers and regaining her confidence so it’s liberating to her on more than one level.
Branded by Fire (also by Nalini Singh) comes a little bit later in the series and is really interesting because the hero and heroine are different types of shifters from different packs–he’s a wolf and she’s a leopard. The conflict is that it’s thought that if they mate then they will end up with the pack of whichever of them is more dominant. The heroine holds an important position in her pack and is very loyal and caring to them and she does not want to be part of the hero’s pack under any circumstances. It gets resolved in a satisfying way and one that does not threaten her relationship with her pack. With that said, the fact that they are different types of shifters might make it a bad fit for you, I’m not sure. That also comes into play (at first her leopard half is really conflicted about her attraction to a wolf shifter). Nalini Singh’s earlier books do also tend to have bossy heroes so I can’t promise there’s none of that in this book. I don’t remember but I do recall that the heroine has a lot of spine and is submissive to no one.
I also mentioned Prisoner by Lia Silver in both books. The heroine in that is a trained assassin. She is not a wilting flower. The hero isn’t dominant at all. That said she is human (genetically engineered to be strong and fast, I think, though I’m fuzzy on the details so I could be wrong).
Looking at this list makes me think about my preferences vis-a-vis dominant heroes. Many of Nalini Singh’s heroes are dominant types and I find this at once obnoxious and sexy. Bossiness in books can work for me on a charisma and sex appeal level but not outside of that. Sometimes it can come across as patronizing and that can be a turnoff.
ETA: Singh’s more recent books are less in that vein. Wolf Rain might work for you. The hero is a wolf but I don’t remember him ever dominating her or anyone else. He’s very appealing. The heroine is a psy (human form).
@Becky: I just wanted to mention that in the Adhara books – in the later books I mean dynamic changes pretty significantly from what we would guess it will be based on the first book alone. I mean, this does not mean necessarily that these books/ wolf shifters are for you, I love shifters and wolf shifters specifically very much in theory, but I can rarely ( or at least not too often) find the book with shifters that I am happy with it. I just wanted to clarify!
@Janine: Thank you so much for your thoughtful answers to my questions! You helped me think about these stories in a different way, especially around sex and intimacy. I really liked what you said here: “the animal half represents what may be messy / thought dangerous / unwanted by others in the shifter, and the other character’s acceptance of that animal symbolizes acceptance of these things. I find that romantic–the idea that what others reject is not feared by this one person, or what this one person once was reticent of is now welcome and loved.” That really is a lovely thought, so I will try using that lens when reading my next shifter romance to see if it helps. In addition, it seems there are definitely some books I might enjoy more, which do not use the dominant/submissive dynamic. For me, dominant, or alpha, types, often come across as controlling, and I want to yell at the submissive one to run away from that person, be they male or female. I really prefer equal relationships. The Smoke Thief sounds intriguing, so I think I will start with that and see how I do.
@Becky: I hope it works for you! I would really love to hear if it does. It is a darker book and it’s been a long time since I’ve read it, so I can’t confirm it holds up. I did love it, though.
@Janine: I read Prisoner by Lia Silver yesterday; I purchased it in 2014, so it was time! Both hero and heroine are being forced to work for secret American forces as someone special to each is being threatened/held captive. And, yes, the werewolf hero is strong and capable but not at all dominant. He has dyslexia and some other challenges. The book ends on a cliffhanger.
@Kareni: I had forgotten the cliffhanger. Is it a cliffhanger for the relationship or just for the external plot? I wonder if the next book was out yet at the time that I read this one.
@Janine:
Spoiler alert
They have newly declared their love for each other, but they are still captive.
@Kareni: Oh yeah! Thanks for reminding me.
@Kareni: It looks like there is a direct sequel:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25019507-partner
@Becky: I want to clarify what I said about Branded by Fire earlier. It’s not clear until the end of the book whether Mercy or Riley is more dominant and that’s what makes the question of whose pack they will end up in compelling.
I can add a spoiler or email you with one if you would like.
I saw that @Janine and am dithering….
@Kareni: It looks like it’s on KU, FWIW.
I don’t think it was out yet at the time I read Prisoner. If you read it, let me know your thoughts.