THE TURNING SEASON by Sharon Shinn is book three in the
Shifting Circle series. As with the other two
books in
this series, I found this to be a melancholy read. I
love,
love, love Shinn's writing style, so I will read anything
that she writes. My favorite series of hers is the
Samaria
books, which are a mix of sci fi and romance. The
Shifting
Circle books, while they do contain some mild romance,
are
definitely downers to me though, so I have to be in a
certain mood to read them.
Karadel is a shape-shifter who works as a veterinarian
while she's in human form. Being a shifter in Shinn's
world is not glamorous, though, but a huge hardship.
Karadel is trying to come up with a formula to inject
herself with that will allow herself to turn into the same
animal each time, instead of the different animals she has
been, some of which are hard to disguise (who can hide an
elephant in their back yard?!) It is fascinating to me
that Shinn has chosen to make most of her shifters take
the
form of multiple animals, rather than a fixed animal form.
Karadel hates the fact that she is a shifter. Her
unpredictable and uncontrolled shifts makes her life
incredibly difficult, and she will die young from the
physical hardships that her shifts cause.
Karadel has a motley group of friends, many of whom are
shifters as well. Karadel meets a lovely man, Joe, when
he
is working as a bouncer at a dance club that her shifter
friend Celeste drags her too. Joe & Karadel slowly fall
in
love, and Karadel is forced to make challenging decisions
about trusting her new love or her old friends. The
questions about morality and the ethical dilemmas posed
here are quietly insightful, as I expect from Shinn, who
often presents sharp questions in a beautiful yet subtle
manner in her books.
I enjoy that Shinn's world building that continues in THE
TURNING SEASON- I keep learning more about the Shifter
Circle with each story. Although part of a series,
this
book easily works well as a standalone read. This is a
thoughtful book, well-polished and with incisive beauty.
The truths of Shinn's shifter world are harsh, so readers
should expect to deeply feel the pain of the characters'
exposed hearts here.
In national bestselling author Sharon Shinn’s latest
Shifting Circle novel, a woman must choose between hiding
her nature—and risking her heart...
For Karadel, being a shape-shifter has always been a
reality she couldn’t escape. Even though she’s built a
safe life as a rural veterinarian, with a close-knit
network of shifter and human friends who would do anything
for her—and for each other—she can’t help but wish for a
chance at being normal.
When she’s not dealing with her shifts or caring for her
animal patients, she attempts to develop a drug that will
help shifters control their changes—a drug that might even
allow them to remain human forever.
But her comfortable life is threatened by two events: She
meets an ordinary man who touches her heart, and her best
friend is forced to shift publicly with deadly
consequences.
Now Karadel must decide whom to trust: her old friends or
her new love.
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