‘Stealthily funny, slyly smart, and remarkably touching’ VERONICA ROTH, bestselling author of WHEN AMONG CROWS
‘A heartfelt fable about disability and the possibility of reconciling conflicting needs through love and understanding’ THE GUARDIAN
‘Sweetly furious, darkly funny, and gruesomely wholesome. It’s a love story for the unloved, a happily-ever-after with a higher-than-average body count. I just adored it’ ALIX E. HARROW, author of STARLING HOUSE
“Do love stories often end this way?” “Why do you think it’s over?”
Shesheshen has made a fatal mistake for a monster: she’s fallen in love.
Shesheshen is a shapeshifter – one who is perfectly content to stay as an amorphous lump in her swamp unless impolite monster hunters invade intent on murdering her. Then, she meets warm-hearted Homily, who mistakes Shesheshen for a human like her.
But just as Shesheshen is about to confess her true identity, Homily reveals she’s hunting the shapeshifting monster that supposedly cursed her family. Shesheshen didn’t curse anyone, but to give them both a chance at happiness, she must figure out why Homily’s family thinks she did – while surviving her toxic in-laws long enough to build a life with the woman she loves.
A glorious, funny, occasionally slightly violent love story which asks us to examine – and re-examine – the meaning of legacy, family and love.
Readers love Someone You Can Build A Nest In
‘I adored everything about it’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ reader review
‘Charmingly gruesome and unique’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ reader review
‘This book is going to live rent free in my head for a long time’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ reader review
‘A brilliant, monstrous tale’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ reader review
‘One of the finest novels I’ve read’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ reader review
‘A heartfelt fable about disability and the possibility of reconciling conflicting needs through love and understanding’ THE GUARDIAN
‘Sweetly furious, darkly funny, and gruesomely wholesome. It’s a love story for the unloved, a happily-ever-after with a higher-than-average body count. I just adored it’ ALIX E. HARROW, author of STARLING HOUSE
“Do love stories often end this way?” “Why do you think it’s over?”
Shesheshen has made a fatal mistake for a monster: she’s fallen in love.
Shesheshen is a shapeshifter – one who is perfectly content to stay as an amorphous lump in her swamp unless impolite monster hunters invade intent on murdering her. Then, she meets warm-hearted Homily, who mistakes Shesheshen for a human like her.
But just as Shesheshen is about to confess her true identity, Homily reveals she’s hunting the shapeshifting monster that supposedly cursed her family. Shesheshen didn’t curse anyone, but to give them both a chance at happiness, she must figure out why Homily’s family thinks she did – while surviving her toxic in-laws long enough to build a life with the woman she loves.
A glorious, funny, occasionally slightly violent love story which asks us to examine – and re-examine – the meaning of legacy, family and love.
Readers love Someone You Can Build A Nest In
‘I adored everything about it’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ reader review
‘Charmingly gruesome and unique’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ reader review
‘This book is going to live rent free in my head for a long time’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ reader review
‘A brilliant, monstrous tale’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ reader review
‘One of the finest novels I’ve read’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ reader review
Newsletter Signup
By clicking ‘Sign Up,’ I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Hachette Book Group’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Use
Reviews
A beautiful monster story with a heart, Wiswell treats his outcasts as heroes. He is an author the world desperately needs
Someone You Can Build A Nest In is charming, horrifying, sweet, and funny - everything I could have wanted from John Wiswell's debut novel and more! With the perfect blend of humor and darkness, it's a wholly fresh take on a monster story
Someone You Can Build A Nest In is the future of fantasy: a fairy tale with boundaries, an imaginative world created in the shape of collective values rather than the boring old id, a portal to a place you've really never seen before instead of just a princess in a different outfit. This novel is going to change the entire genre
Horror blends with heart and whimsy in Wiswell's trope-twisting debut. It's monstrously fun!
Quirky, heartfelt, funny, and absolutely brimming with gore, just my sort of book!
The coziest, most unexpectedly wholesome love story about a monster who devours humans and wears their bones that I've ever read!
Oozing with - among other things - Wiswell's inimitable charm and tenderness, this is a monstrous love story like nothing I've ever read before
Someone You Can Build a Nest In is sweetly furious, darkly funny, and gruesomely wholesome. It's a love story for the unloved, a happily-ever-after with a higher-than-average body count. I just adored it
This novel is for anyone who has ever felt like an outcast - or been bewildered by society's absurdities. I fell in love with Shesheshen's wry voice and dark sense of humor
I love the wonder and the darkly enchanting danger of this story. It makes me think of fairy tales, but John Wiswell understands what so many have forgotten: that true fairy tales are gruesome and magical at the same time, and he nails it here
It is perhaps a little weird to say that a book with as much body horror as this has would also be warm, cozy, and sweet, but that's perhaps appropriate: it's a weird book. I mean that in the most positive way possible. Wiswell has crafted a story in which the monsters aren't nearly as terrible as the humans who are both their hunters and their prey, and yet Shesheshen is also unapologetically monstrous. I've never seen anyone pull that off with a fraction of the skill shown here. Besides being a masterful inversion of fantasy monster-slaying tropes, this is a fantastic examination of what it means to be family, and how that trust can be horrifically misused
This book is pure Wiswell. A monstrous protagonist, lovingly and thoughtfully rendered. Sly, fun and darkly humorous with a bloody, beating heart. And always keenly aware of what is truly monstrous in all of us
John Wiswell's remarkable ability to turn expectations upside down and present new, delightful, gruesome, thoughtful viewpoints on narrative is on full display in this debut. Someone You Can Build a Nest in is the best kind of horrifying, beautiful, by turns hilarious and heart-wrenching, and entirely unforgettable: a story about what makes a monster, what makes a person, the scars of trauma, and the transformative (and sometimes traumatic) act of falling in love
A good book is a predator and this one had no problem dragging me off, kicking and hooting, into the tall grasses to make a meal amidst my ribs before finally taking my heart for its own
Imagine Grendel and Beowulf setting aside their differences and deciding to shack up together and you'll have some idea of the flavour of this novel, which balances a sweet, sly sense of humour with some lovingly rendered scenes of gore
A delightful debut. It is weird in all the best ways, combining poetic writing with unexpected characters . . . The writing is gorgeous, with many passages that inspire the reader to consider the deeper truths they tell
This unusual queer romance is a heartfelt fable about disability and the possibility of reconciling conflicting needs through love and understanding
This is a charming story with plenty of snort-worthy lines and a gripping plot
Deeply funny and weird . . . a surprisingly sweet - and very gory - love story
Nothing [can] prepare you for the gentle silliness of Wiswell's wonderful science fiction debut (one draped in the aesthetics of fantasy)
Wiswell raises the bar on the outcast as protagonist . . . the ultimate monster slayer story, if the monster is just a misunderstood creature searching for love
A romp that's both bloody and sweet
Surprisingly sweet, unsurprisingly horrific, and entirely humane - only John Wiswell could have written this monster and her book, and I'm so very glad he did
This is a fast-paced and gloriously weird novel, full of explosive shenanigans and touching sentiment. It also manages to be an exploration of the queerness and the surprising fragility of monstrous bodies, as well as their resilience . . . a remarkably accomplished debut
Wriggly, heartfelt, and carnivorous
Inventive enough to push the boundaries of romance and dark fantasy . . . A wonderfully weird horror romance
The wonderful thing about Wiswell's monster, Shesheshen, is her sensible vulnerability . . . I can guarantee you won't ever forget Shesheshen and Homily, and will be warmed inside forever
Clever, funny, and oddly gentle for a book about a man-eating monster, John Wiswell's debut delivers a surprising blend of fantasy, romance, and horror. Make sure this is on your TBR if you want those squishy-warm feelings of falling in love . . . and those squishy-in-general feelings of viscera, gore, and other things humans prefer to keep on the inside
Someone You Can Build a Nest in is the most original monster story I've read in years. The star of this novel, Shesheshen, is a truly terrifying and other-worldly shapeshifter who absorbs human bones and organs to craft her own body-and has now fallen in love with a woman pledged to kill her. John Wiswell expertly blends horror, humor, romance, and bloody disembowelments in a story about a monster who will not only swallow your heart, but make it her own
A stealthily funny, slyly smart, and remarkably touching story. Its wisdom will creep up on you as surely as your affection for its monstrous main character