Savage Creatures

by Natalie Wilkinson, Megan Claiborne (Illustrator)

Francis Harding has always been good for one thing: doing what his family tells him. So when his mother asks him to travel across the Atlantic to hunt down his mysteriously vanished sister Catherine, he goes without hesitation, only to find himself an unwelcome shapeshifter in a strange city looking for a woman who may not want to be found.

Without any alternative, he finds himself turning to Jamie Besckei, a slippery but compelling character from the wrong side of the tracks. Her particular brand of magic makes Francis' skin crawl, but it just might help him track down Catherine. As his own magical abilities begin to fail him and his options grow fewer, Francis makes a bargain that binds him to Jamie in ways he never expected, and that will change the course of his life forever.

A fantasy noir cum psychological thriller set against the backdrop of a grim, quasi-dystopian Europe only a half step away from our own, Savage Creatures is a haunting meditation on the destructive power and vital importance of family that will rivet readers from first page to last.

Genres: Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, LGBT, Fiction

Unknown Binding

First published February 15, 2016

About the author

Natalie Wilkinson aka Febricant is a yoga enthusiast currently adjusting to life in London after having lived in the woods for years, making friends with horses. Before that, she managed to somehow get a degree in anthropology from an undisclosed but "totally legit" university, travel the world, and stay out of jail.

She is not long on biographical information in print, so she has asked us to leave you with these words of advice: "Never tag cop cars, it pisses them off. If you're ever in the woods in West Sussex, only some of those shotgun shells are mine. Snowdrifts are not good hiding spots for games of hide and seek. Vaccinate your pets."

Natalie is pretty new to the whole writing thing but has in the past dabbled in bad poetry, four-chord acoustic guitar classics and poorly-choreographed dance numbers. Her parents are not one hundred percent sure she wasn't switched at birth with another baby in the Hammersmith maternity ward, but they can be quoted as saying, "Well, we always knew she had imagination, that's for sure." Whether this had anything to do with her creating complex stuffed animal societies which she ruled over as a benevolent dictator in her youth remains to be confirmed. (bb)

Reviews

[anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

rep: dark-skinned sapphic mc, sapphic side characters

this is a weird little book. (and yes, it's definitely little, it's basically a novella.) i'm not entirely sure how to feel abt it. i loved the writing, very atmospheric, lyrical at times. altho it could have used another round of editing to get rid of all the repetitions.

let's focus on facts:
- the worldbuilding is really cool - dark and grimy and full of magic & blood
- seriously, there's a lot of blood
- ppl die, okay. a lot of them
- not all ur questions abt this world get answered, but personally i love it this way
- there r shapeshifters and ppl who can do magic and a london that holds more secrets than u could imagine
- the whole concept for this story - it's surprising and a little bit fucked up
- also, mc is a sapphic dark-skinned woc

[Miss Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

this probably would've been better as a first release for big bang press if they wanted to really convince with the 'books by fandom authors but they're NOT fanfic' line

i liked it! it was a bit of an awkward length -- i'd have either expanded it more (the sketched worldbuilding was interesting and i would've liked more details!) or compressed it into a short story and left it at that (at the end of the day there wasn't a whole lot of plot to go with the admittedly cool atmosphere)

3 stars

[D · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book. I backed the original kickstarter for its publication and I was looking forward to a noir story with werewolves and magic. What we go was more like a novella sized story that was far too stilted to give us any real character development (which was a shame because I felt like there were glimpses of really interesting things that could have happened but just didn't) and no real connection to anyone in the story.

When the big reveal happened, I wasn't surprised or intrigued by what could have been a really neat plot twist in this work.

This felt unfinished and perhaps like it was part of a larger work, which again, was a real shame because the potential is there. I have read other stories by the author that I really enjoyed but this didn't have the same heart or dedication to characters that anything else did.

[TK · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a very quick read, with an interesting setting and characters, but it felt too short. The magic system isn't explored enough, I think, as well as the relationships of the protagonist and some of the side characters. If it had another 10-20k words developing the world and characters more, it would be a 5-star book to me.

That said, I'm very interested to see what this author produces next.

[Peter Aronson · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting, atmospheric and stylish urban fantasy that presents a gritty, magical version of London without info dumps. This book doesn't spend a lot of time explaining what's going, but dives right into the action, giving it immediacy and drive. This makes it stand out a bit from the usual urban fantasy tendency to start out with an info dump or three. Lots of fun, and I'd like to see these characters again.

[Katharine · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book would have made a pretty good short story - once you figure out the central twist, it's pretty cool and weird. But I never cared at all about the characters, which made even this slender book a slog. It's not so much that the two main characters were unsympathetic--although they were--but rather that, despite having cool powers, they just weren't that interesting. Cynicism is not a substitute for personality.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

A relatively-quick (or fast-paced?), direct, bloody read. Similar feelings to when I read Neverwhere however long ago — of a setting just a half-step away, with its own strange culture and rules and brutality. Feels like it could be the start of a series. Lots of blood.
(I'd call this a 3.5/5)

[Julia · Rating 1 out of 5]

Had to stop reading because I just did not care for it. The werecreature cliches were extremely old and tired. Surely there has to be a different way to do werefolk than the old "packs struggling for territory" thing.

[Rae · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd give this four and a half stars. I loved the writing style and the grittiness of it, but it wasn't a favorite.