Short Takes: SHANE CULLAINE SERIES & NUMA. A Hard-boiled Guy & A Shape-Shifting Girl

The Savage Dance, Shane Cullaine Book 1 by Patrick King

 This novel reminds me of Mickey Spillane modern, a guy with his own ethical compass and a softness for the ladies. Shane, known as "cool," from his previous life as a high school athlete, Shane is rough around the edges with huge simmering emotion underneath. This guy has a poet's perception of the tarnished beauty of life--observing it's beauty and the ideal, while absorbing the worst. This is a page-turner, exciting, funny dialogue, and over-the-top action. Shane is a surprise, even to himself, and his reflexes are super hero. Yet his flaws and regrets are only human. I look forward to Book 2. 

Numa:An Epic Poem with Photo Collages by Katrinka Moore, Published
by Aqueduct Press' Conversation Pieces. This poem tells the story of a shape shifting girl in the woods, who gives birth to a cub and must deal with an interloper. But what impressed me was not the story but the feeling of being alien in nature. Numa experiences and becomes feral beauty. You discover with her what it means to be human, in a primal sense--shape shifting to survive.

So what could a new detective series and an epic literary poem have in common?  Shape-shifting has a few meanings but both Shane and Numa use it to keep balance in unpredictable terrain.--S.W.




HATCHES

bird's head on
a young girl's body/feathery
crest, yellow
tipped/thin fast
down legs     hop
from one
foot to the
other/ a berry
in her hand


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