Menagerie is paranormal.

No, wait. Menagerie is an alternate universe.

Um, Menagerie is an issue book.

Menagerie is a modern mythology.

Whatever it is, Menagerie is compelling from page one. The opening scene was one of the most intriguing for me, and set my expectations for the rest of the novel. And that may have been a bit of a problem.

A Boozy Book Club Menagerie Review

Menagerie is set in a modern America that looks very different than the one we live in. A world where werewolves, mermaids, oracles, centaurs, and shapeshifters are real … and without rights. An infamous, national tragedy a quarter century earlier has made criminals and slaves of cryptids in our country. They have no rights, no freedoms and no personhood, despite a varying range of gifts, human-likeness, and a universal consciousness. So they are chained, contained and commoditized for human gain and entertainment.

A famous traveling carnival comes to Delilah Marlow’s town, and despite the hefty TicketMaster fee, her boyfriend takes her to see the macabre circus the night of her birthday. What happens to her there as she’s confronted with the reality of caged human-looking cryptids and creatures turns her life upside down.

It’s at this moment that the book starts to really pain the reader. We are carried along with Delilah as she is stripped of her property, her clothing, her name, her human identity. She is caged. She is reviled. And she is left to the devices of men who would treat dogs better than they do the cryptid creatures.

There’s so much that this book gets right. The stripping down of identity that happens when we refuse to look at a person as a person. The humanness of clothing, pillows and baths. The reality of the arrogance of ignorance and how we allow it to wrong so many. I really loved Delilah; she is fully relatable even with her unique power. Eryx and Gallagher vie for second place as my next favorite characters. Fantastic being in their heads.

What it got wrong for me was hemmed up most likely in my expectations. The first scene and the subsequent chapter openers set up a past story that is never fully explained, about how cryptid changelings somehow replaced children and slaughtered families in the mid 1980s. Delilah’s backstory seems similar, but unrelated. I kept expecting a Big Bad to show up that would connect those dots. When the villains of the book remained exactly who I thought they were, I was disappointed. I kept expecting someone else to step out from behind the circus tents.

But author Rachel Vincent has set up a fantastic world and mythos here. I cannot wait to see where the rest of the books in the series will go.

Bonus: If you’ve been around Boozy Book Club from the beginning, this book is a lot like our first book, Written in Red, but with 100% less wolf-crotch-sniffing. #SaveTheWolves

Boozy Book Club Review

I give this one four out of five wine bottles. Would it have been improved by wolfy-crotch sniffing? No. The lack of romance may keep some of our boozy book club readers from loving this one, but hey … if you know where it (isn’t) headed ahead of time, you won’t be waiting for it.

And it’s totally worth it for the word building and the potential to see where this series is going.

Boozy Book Club in January

And now it’s time to announce what’s coming up for the new year in Boozy Book Club! Get ready for some awesome books. January will have the next installment in one of our Boozy Book Club favorites and a brand new series with some of our favorite things.

Feverborn by Karen M. Moning

JERICHO Z BARRONS IS BACK. Love him or hate him, there’s a new installment of the Fever series, and we are here for it. Doesn’t it seem like Burned just came out?

In Karen Marie Moning’s latest installment of the epic #1 New York Times bestselling Fever series, the stakes have never been higher and the chemistry has never been hotter. Hurtling us into a realm of labyrinthine intrigue and consummate seduction, FEVERBORN is a riveting tale of ancient evil, lust, betrayal, forgiveness and the redemptive power of love.

When the immortal race of the Fae destroyed the ancient wall dividing the worlds of Man and Faery, the very fabric of the universe was damaged and now Earth is vanishing bit by bit. Only the long-lost Song of Making—a haunting, dangerous melody that is the source of all life itself—can save the planet.

But those who seek the mythic Song—Mac, Barrons, Ryodan and Jada—must contend with old wounds and new enemies, passions that burn hot and hunger for vengeance that runs deep. The challenges are many: The Keltar at war with nine immortals who’ve secretly ruled Dublin for eons, Mac and Jada hunted by the masses, the Seelie queen nowhere to be found, and the most powerful Unseelie prince in all creation determined to rule both Fae and Man. Now the task of solving the ancient riddle of the Song of Making falls to a band of deadly warriors divided among—and within—themselves.

Once a normal city possessing a touch of ancient magic, Dublin is now a treacherously magical city with only a touch of normal. And in those war-torn streets, Mac will come face to face with her most savage enemy yet: herself.

Are missing out on Dani’s story to get more Mac? Who’s looking forward to this one?

Passenger by Alexandra Bracken

Oh, you’re into time travel and danger and swoony, protective boys? US TOO. Here’s the official summary of Passenger.

In one devastating night, violin prodigy Etta Spencer loses everything she knows and loves. Thrust into an unfamiliar world by a stranger with a dangerous agenda, Etta is certain of only one thing: she has traveled not just miles but years from home. And she’s inherited a legacy she knows nothing about from a family whose existence she’s never heard of. Until now.

Nicholas Carter is content with his life at sea, free from the Ironwoods—a powerful family in the colonies—and the servitude he’s known at their hands. But with the arrival of an unusual passenger on his ship comes the insistent pull of the past that he can’t escape and the family that won’t let him go so easily. Now the Ironwoods are searching for a stolen object of untold value, one they believe only Etta, Nicholas’ passenger, can find. In order to protect her, he must ensure she brings it back to them— whether she wants to or not.

Together, Etta and Nicholas embark on a perilous journey across centuries and continents, piecing together clues left behind by the traveler who will do anything to keep the object out of the Ironwoods’ grasp. But as they get closer to the truth of their search, and the deadly game the Ironwoods are playing, treacherous forces threaten to separate Etta not only from Nicholas but from her path home . . . forever.