Reviewed by Vicki
TITLE: Bye-Bye Birdie
SERIES: 2016 Daily Dose – A Walk on the Wild Side
AUTHOR: Lex Chase
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 39 Pages
RELEASE DATE: June 1st, 2016
BLURB:
Christopher Robin and Dashiell Hammond couldn’t be more different. Dash is an iguana shifter who provides aid for natural disasters far and wide, but Chris is a flighty parakeet shifter who can’t find his way across town without Google Maps. To Chris, Dash is a superhero, but he spent more time saving the world than saving their relationship.
To conquer his heartache, Chris books a cruise, determined to meet Mr. Right Now instead of Mr. Right. But he doesn’t expect the cabin steward responsible for his adorable towel animals to be none other than his ex-boyfriend. When the pair fall overboard and take refuge on a deserted island, old feelings resurface. With Dash’s hardnosed survival skills and Chris’s fickle insecurities, they’ll have to learn to compromise if they want to get back to slamming daiquiris at the tiki bar.
REVIEW:
What a fun little story!
As you probably know by now, this summer’s DSP Daily Dose collection is all about shifters. I’ve read a handful of the stories so far, with the typical mix of good and less good stories. What I really love about them though, is the variations in shifter species. There have been all sorts of crazy shifters and pairings! With this story we get Chris the parakeet shifter, and Dash the iguana shifter. Chris a homebody, Dash a traveler. Chris wants a family, Dash wants to save other families. Dash seems calm and steady, Chris as flighty as…. I have to say it… a BIRD! The two have broken up after a twelve-year engagement, Chris has gotten a bit chubby and his reward for losing weight is a cruise. Of course Dash is a steward on the ship and the two end up on a deserted island!
So these stories are just really short and fast paced and it’s hard to do any character building, or develop much of a plot. This one was fun to read, it’s just a little glimpse of these two men, but it’s so hard to get much out of it. I did like the characters, we see them in their human forms and in their shifted forms. Chris’s mom pops up at the beginning, and there is a cute conversation between them that made me chuckle. Unfortunately the time that Dash and Chris spend together is mostly spent bickering and slogging around an island. We only get Chris’s perspective so not much is shown about Dash. The big issue I had was seeing them as a couple. There is no sex, only off page masturbation, I think that added to the difficulty I had in finding a connection between the two of them. I loved Chris though, especially as a parakeet!
It was a fun short story, I’ve only read a few things written by Lex, and I do like her light touch. Her characters were quirky and fun, the dialogue was fast, the story was fast, and bam! It was over!
RATING:
BUY LINKS:
I have always wanted to read about a bird shifter…
Sounds really good. I’d love to see these two trying to compromise in a isolated island. LOL!
Owl shifter… I’ve read. Never a parakeet! Causes me to wonder about one I had as a child that ended up in the kitchen sink floating in the dish water!!!
Haven’t really read many bird shifter stories. This sounds like a interesting one =)
This sounds so cute! An iguana and a parakeet? I can’t wait to read it.