Someone You Can Build A Nest In cover art

Someone You Can Build A Nest In

A cosy fantasy as sweet as love and as dark as night

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Someone You Can Build A Nest In

By: John Wiswell
Narrated by: Carmen Rose
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About this listen

 **Winner: Nebula Award for Best Novel**
**Winner: Locus Award for Best First Novel**
**Shortlisted for: Hugo Award for Best Novel**

'Stealthily funny, slyly smart, and remarkably touching' VERONICA ROTH, bestselling author of WHEN AMONG CROWS

Shesheshen has made a fatal mistake for a monster: she's fallen in love.

Shesheshen is a shapeshifter, who usually resides as an amorphous lump in the swamp of a ruined manor, unless impolite monster hunters invade intent on murdering her. Through a chance encounter, she meets a different kind of human, warm-hearted Homily, who mistakes Shesheshen for a human in turn.

Shesheshen is loath to deceive, but just as she's 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 twisted family thinks she did. And the bigger challenge remains: surviving her toxic in-laws long enough to learn 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. Winner of the Nebula Award for Best Novel!

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©2024 John Wiswell Best of 2024 Fantasy Literature & Fiction Science Fiction & Fantasy Funny Heartfelt Hunting

Critic reviews

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
This unusual queer romance is a heartfelt fable about disability and the possibility of reconciling conflicting needs through love and understanding
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
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)
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
Inventive enough to push the boundaries of romance and dark fantasy . . . A wonderfully weird horror romance
Wriggly, heartfelt, and carnivorous
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
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
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
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
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
All stars
Most relevant
I've loved listening to this book. It kept me company for several weeks while much life stuff happened, and has been a brilliant escape route.

Carmen Rose, the narrator is like a spicy Hugo Weaving in her delivery as the monster (Shesheshen), and is incredibly talented with the dialogue. Homily's voice especially, through Carmen is perfect, but all the voices and accents are brilliant and led to an immersive experience.

Shesheshen can assume any appearance and voice. How she does this is...well..no spoilers but there's plenty of body horror. 

Shesheshen understands pain, is outcast, hunted, hated, feared and involved in surprising, delicious little moments that made me laugh often.

So, I'm glad I grabbed this, I came for the beautiful cover, and stayed for what turned out to be a blood filled gorefest of a cosy fantasy horror love story that I didn't want to end!

I actually reckon Terry Pratchett would have loved this book too. It's compelling, not afraid of difficult conversations, and real in that way that fantasy is, while holding up a mirror to life. I'll be looking out for more from John Wiswell soon, and maybe more Shesheshen and Homily in future tales?

Cosy fantasy horror love story with tentacles

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So rare to come across a new approach to what could have been a traditional story. I really enjoyed this. It felt fresh and was a tender love story but without tedious sex scenes and yet still had its fair share of gore.
I don't want to give to much away, but highly recommend you give this audiobook a go.

Delightfully different

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This wasn't perfect but as far as amoral, amorphous creature romance stories go it's definitely one of the better ones I've ever read. I don't tend to like love at first sight stories and, while it wasn't that quick, I feel the novel had time for more of a slow burn. The female lead certainly spent more time becoming invested than the protagonist and they could have both fallen in love together at a more even pace.

I liked the humour and thought the setting worked well. I just wasn't gripped by the relationship or the book as much as I could have been. I thought the narrator, Carmen Rose, did a good job with the material.

Good but romance developed quickly

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This was an absolutely gorgeous book. The narration was pleasant to listen to and the story was very special - it felt unlike anything I've read before. It was beautiful seeing the "monster" grow, I loved how the writer created her and her monstrosity. And there were so many instances of just fantastic use of words, beautiful phrases that really struck me, often when the author was speaking in Shesheshen's voice about something strange in humanity. The love story with Homily was also just gorgeous and a real highlight. I so enjoyed this book and will seek out more by this author! I will be recommending to everyone

A beautiful story, wonderfully written

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The narration fit the piece very well indeed . I was surprised at how touching I found parts of this book.

Surprisingly beautiful

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