 | A delightful fantasy-horror, Someone You Can Build a Nest In, follows the misadventures of Shesheshen, an earnest shape-shifting monster who falls in love with a human woman. In Shesheshen’s world, love means planting your eggs within your beloved so your young can devour the carcass from the inside out. But Shesheshan quickly realizes humans have very different ideas about love—and eating her new girlfriend Homily isn’t an option, no matter how delicious she smells. Shesheshen decides to confess her true nature to Homily, but before she can, Homily reveals she’s part of a family bound to hunt and destroy Shesheshen to end their family curse. |
Monster hunters routinely track and try to kill Shesheshen, which she finds rude and irritating. A pair of monster-killers come to her lair in the book’s opening, awakening her early from her annual hibernation, and the stakes rise from there.
Shesheshen’s shapeshifting is the most unusual aspect of the novel; she can incorporate anything she consumes into her body: chain, metal rods, bone, flesh, organs.
Shesheshen’s shapeshifting is the most unusual aspect of the novel; she can incorporate anything she consumes into her body: chain, metal rods, bone, flesh, organs.
 | Here she is awakening from hibernation: “Along the floor of the bathing room lay iron rods and dense stones, which she’d left out last season. She rolled across them, letting them cut through external layers of her flesh with a sting that felt like waking up. Her innards squeezed these rod and stones, aligning them into a loose skeletal structure. A steel chain once used to bind her now made an excellent spinal column, flexible without breaking when catapults lobbed debris at her.” Her consumption of the hunters who accost her is visceral without being gory: “He had the chest of a man who exercises for sport, which made for pleasant chewing. His marrow was unusually sweet, and his bones hard against her orifices. Sturdy bones scratched pleasantly against her insides, and she squeezed them into alignment so she could hold new shapes.” |
Throughout the story, Shesheshan’s unique voice and perspective on the world provides much of the zany comedy:
- “For some reason, clutching at clothing was a classic human sign of being pathetic.”
- “I was going badly enough. It might as well go badly on horseback.”
- “People like that had the most delicious-tasting heads.”
- “Homily’s [bed]room was everything Shesheshen didn’t like about people. A bed larger than any human’s surface area, and the sheets were so tight across it that you would have to wrestle to get under them. Mirrors hung on the walls, to trick you into thinking you were company. Dressers and bureaus to encourage people to change clothes more frequently than made sense. Bedrooms were made out of bad habits.”
- “It was much nicer tonight than last night, and not just because Shesheshen wasn't dying of poison this time.”
- “She was going to eat her mother-in-law for the common good.”
- “From what she knew of civilization, all children were parasites. You were supposed to grow to like that about them.
 | While trying to pass as a human woman, Shesheshen falls in love with kind and caring Homily, then unhappily develops a strange organ in the center of her chest that aches whenever Homily is unhappy. “Companionship. That was civilization's trap and snare. And Shesheshen had stepped right into it.” Things get more complicated when she learns Homily is trying to kill the local “monster”. Then Shesheshen meets Homily’s dysfunctional family. It soon becomes apparent that Homily is abused emotionally and physically by her family, and has compensated by learning to be overly giving. Shesheshen tries to support Homily without rescuing her, and at the same time avoid being discovered and slaughtered by her family. |
The most audacious character is Homily’s mother, the Baroness. She has led many successful military campaigns and brags about slaughtering Shesheshen’s mother years ago. She rules her family with an iron will and is cruel and dismissive of Homily, while idolizing Homily’s siblings.
The Baroness’s backstory is revealed late in the novel: it wasn't a surprise to me, but it set off a madcap scramble to kill the “monster” creating a wild ride up until the thrilling conclusion.
Some readers have taken exception to Shesheshen’s therapy-like insights into Homily’s trauma and family drama, and there were times the author used the characters as advocates, but overall the insights into how people respond to and process trauma added to the complexity of the novel. The denouement was a sweet wrap-up providing a happy ending for our main characters.
Read Someone You Can Build a Nest In for a cozy horror-fantasy with a unique “monster” who proves to be very human. Nominated for the 2025 Nebula and Hugo awards.
The Baroness’s backstory is revealed late in the novel: it wasn't a surprise to me, but it set off a madcap scramble to kill the “monster” creating a wild ride up until the thrilling conclusion.
Some readers have taken exception to Shesheshen’s therapy-like insights into Homily’s trauma and family drama, and there were times the author used the characters as advocates, but overall the insights into how people respond to and process trauma added to the complexity of the novel. The denouement was a sweet wrap-up providing a happy ending for our main characters.
Read Someone You Can Build a Nest In for a cozy horror-fantasy with a unique “monster” who proves to be very human. Nominated for the 2025 Nebula and Hugo awards.
Other books with brave characters overcoming traumatic situations:
Four Profound Weaves, Light from Uncommon Stars, Nettle & Bone,
A Taste of Gold and Iron, The Bruising of Qilwa, The Queens of Innis Lear,
A Closed and Common Orbit, Dead Country, A Sorceress Comes to Call
Four Profound Weaves, Light from Uncommon Stars, Nettle & Bone,
A Taste of Gold and Iron, The Bruising of Qilwa, The Queens of Innis Lear,
A Closed and Common Orbit, Dead Country, A Sorceress Comes to Call
