GL Carriger - The Dratsie Dilemma

Once upon a time, Trick went up against the sea and lost. Badly. Or so he thought.
What the sea decides to keep, it keeps forever.
Trick is a dratsie shifter, a river otter. He is charming, loads of fun, and a little bit slippery. He’s running from a past he can’t forget, and he’s landed unexpectedly in the chaotic comforting embrace of a small-town cafe and the world’s queerest pack of werewolves.
Unfortunately, it turns out the past has also refused to forget Trick. It washes up on his doorstep and gets instantly tangled up in marine biology conferences, twelve mermaids thrift shopping, and specialty cappuccinos.
That past is grumpy, sexy, and wearing a very sparkly tail. (Don’t you dare call him a fish.)
Trick was just starting to feel like it was all going to be okay. But sometimes the sea decides to spit up a merman who has been looking for Trick for over a decade. Trick will have to decide whether he starts running all over again or faces up to heartbreak and the childhood best friend who betrayed him.

Comment: This is the fourth full length installment in the San Andreas Shifters series by author GL Carriger, who is actually Gail Carriger. The last story in this series had been published in 2020 and I have been eagerly awaiting more stories, for what I have read was very appealing altogether. At last, this book was released in the past December and I was quite happy to finally take another dive! (pun intended since the main characters are water shifters)

Trick is an otter shifter. Otters are known to have large families and Trick's is no exception but they have always gotten themselves into trouble, the criminal type. Trick has often escaped to his neighbor's house, where he met Sato, the mermen who became his best friend and then, boyfriend. However, the promises they made to each other failed, and now Trick is on the other side of the country and is part of the San Andreas pack, as weird as that can be. He wasn't counting on Sato truly coming back...

Sato did come back but it was later than what he intended and he has been searching for Trick for all this time. By chance, he is with his pod in California, for they are attending a marine conference, and suddenly, there is Patrick, the boy he has always loved. He wants to win him over, but will the pressures of the past, which separated them due to several obligations, be reason to push them apart again? 

After years since I had read the last book in the series, there were things I no longer remembered that's true. But many others just came to mind the longer I read. What I like the most about these books is how heartfelt the character connections are and how each protagonist, in their own story, feels much more than seems if they are simply secondary characters...

This story features an interesting couple. The series is mainly focused on werewolves and their pack dynamics, but this time we have two shifters who are water oriented, Trick is an otter and Sato is a mermen. Throughout the story we get to learn many cultural details about these two types of shifters, why they are the way they are, personality aside and I must say that while I love the author's imagination, the water born shifters' dynamics certainly don't dazzle me as much as the more traditional wolf ones do. It was great these two were linked to the pack, but their relationship and the water "roots" wasn't as impressive to me.

What did impress was, as in the other books, how the characters' dynamics made for such an engrossing read. Trick and Sato were apart for a long time, still thinking about one another and longing and feeling sad over the separation, and while the story develops these thoughts and feelings are often part of their daily routines and in how they deal with others. I think this is a good way to convey emotion and longing too, because it shows they are not just the labels one might give them, such as needy Trick and stoic Sato.

Their romance was sweet in the sense that they longed for one another even when they both thought the other hadn't fulfilled the promise of waiting. I think they were on the verge of being a bit obsessed with each other and Sato especially seems too focused on Trick... I suppose shifters would always behave this way and Sato could even been seen as in the spectrum if he were human and not shifter, but I wouldn't have minded that their relationship could be a bit more balanced. I was still happy for them, of course, and that they managed to find each other again.

There is certainly a huge dose of shenanigans and craziness in these books, though. I can understand it isn't a style that will resonate with all readers. Comparing a little to the author's work as Gail Carriger, there are series which mix up these crazy and serious elements quite well, and other stories in which it seems everything is over the top. I confess there were moments in which the absurd of some scenes/situations made me roll my eyes, but in general, the vibe was still a good vibe of what I like about these types of books...light stuff in the middle of an actual sedate plot.

I had a great time reading this book, even the more serious parts. I hope the author won't be taking too long to release a new novel in the series.... even the characters who aren't werewolves have their appeal!

Grade: 8/10