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277 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 8, 2023
I loved everything about him, from his snow-white scales to his pink eyes, to the way he’d cried over that fish the first night. I loved his anxiety, and the secret smiles when he found a new song to be obsessed with. I’d loved watching him make friends with Axel, and the way he’d saved me so many times.
And then I dug a little grave in the frozen ground for the strange exotic fish that had once been a knife. File that among sentences I never thought I’d say. — Phoenix Walker
Warnings: So, so many... Violence, Mild body horror, Kidnapping, captivity and torture (not explicit) War-related, PTSD, Animal death, Drug use, Accidental misgendering. Kinks/ Fetishes: Breeding, Light BDSM, Non-human genitalia, Temperature difference, Biting/ Marking, Knotting. Mpreg (as dirty talk only)
I highly recommend reading Christopher and Ollie's book, Kissed by the Krampus (henceforth KbtK), before reading Phoenix and Bud's. KbtK sets up the world, introduces Bud's powers and the villains. It isn't a requirement, L. Eveland gives a basic rundown of the necessary information before moving on to the new story. We also get some idea of what Bud and Phoenix were doing during KbtK, before Phoenix runs into Christopher and Ollie. That bit of framing of what is happening is useful to have. The plot is simple but effective. After escaping from the ESCU facility at the end of KbtK Phoenix wants to get Bud to Canada and leave him there before moving to Mexico to start again. The story is what happens while they are laying low, waiting for their ride to be repaired. It is getting to know each other and deciding what they really want. There is an underlying plot ongoing from the previous book, Dr Parker Grey, is back and being a nightmare. The ending is wonderful, it was a moment of catharsis in a way. Please be sure to read the warnings before reading this. The readings are accessible through the look inside on amazon just look for the eye-catchingly titled Dear Monsterfuckers page. If you look at the warnings and can accept them I do recommend this it is an enjoyable read with lovely characters.
Bud is a gorgeous soul, he's undeniably sweet and caring, with the cutest range of voices. Unlike KbtK we are in Bud's head as well as Phoenix's. It gives some interesting perspectives. Bud is highly intelligent, his species, the Verrid, have eidetic and genetic memory, I'm not going into his biology I'll leave that as a bit of a surprise. I do want to mention a couple of things. Like in KbtK there is a discussion of mpreg but in Scales and Song it is more complicated. Verrid are actually capable of breeding across species, it is limited to dirty talk. What I will say is there is a fantastic moment when Phoenix finds out that all Verrid are what humans call intersex leading to this exchange... “So… Do you… Are you… Pronouns. What should I use?”
Bud blinked, his big pink eyes focusing and unfocusing as he stared at me. “I like he or they. Anything but it. That is what Doctor Parker called me.” He looked away.
My fingers tightened into fists around the backpack straps. “You’re not an it.”. I appreciated one brilliant aspect of Bud's design, Bud is albino. His scales are snow white, in the right light they take on a rainbow sheen, not the brightly coloured that Verrid are supposed to be. His eyes are pink. But the line that gives him away as an albino is... "I heard them whispering on the other side of the waving purple grass about me, how my progenitor should have eaten me when they realized I was defective. They wished I would leave. My bright white scales stood out and I would draw predators.". I'd figured out way earlier he was an albino and found myself wondering how he had survived past infancy. He survived through the care of his progenitor and a light form of exile, okay he left himself hungry so he could stay with his colony. He left the colony and came through the rift to find a place to belong, a home. With Phoenix, he feels like he finds that home from the first time he sees him. Moreso when Phoenix gives him the nickname and the music that calms him. I adore Bud I could say more about him but I'm really trying to avoid spoilers.
Phoenix Walker is the black ops soldier that Christopher and Ollie to captive in Kissed by the Krampus. This gives us a whole other perspective on him, as is only right. Something I totally missed in KbtK is that Phoenix is black, he is described by Christopher as "He was young, too young, with a beautiful smooth face and skin a warm umber color.". Essentially I just didn't put two and two together, his race does come into play more than once. We see Phoenix's ghosts, a lot of them. He is haunted by his own religious upbringing, his actions in the past and his past relationship. Phoenix is uber-protective of Bud after failing the River Shutter and feeling like he's failed others in his life, in particular, Axel. He is our primary eyes and ears for the story, showing us the world. We are with him as his possessiveness spirals and he has to face his feelings. I really like that he is given a fetish that Bud fits right into, "I’d always had a bit of a leather fetish, but I’d always thought that’d be limited to clothing and accessories. I’d had a pair of leather gloves I bought back in the DRC. No way it’d been sustainably sourced. Hell, it was probably from poachers, but they got me through years of loneliness at the camp. It wasn’t anything in particular. Just the feel of it. Didn’t matter what it was attached to usually, but this… Knowing it wasn’t just attached to Bud, but an integral part of him…". It's an unusual choice but a good one. Like Bud he needs love, stability, and a home.
The interpersonal relationships in Sclaes and Song are interesting to me. They are much more detailed than in KbtK because there are more frequently appearing secondary characters. I mentioned Axel when talking about Phoenix, well Phoenix and Bud spend a substantial amount of time in Scales and Song staying with Axel in his cabin in the backwoods of Munsing, Michigan. Axel is a haunted soul himself even if Phoenix cannot see it, he is hiding from the government and a cult. We know Axel is getting his own book, his monster has already arrived. I'm not entirely certain what it is but it's freaking him out. Phoenix and Axel have a complicated relationship, they were together at the wrong time and for the wrong reasons. It is a painful thing to read. While Bud can sense the tension he likes Axel and gets along with him, their relationship is cute as hell and the way it works was to me at least unexpected. Alex has connections to other characters we need to know, including Charlie Cavallero, better known to readers as Chappie. Charlie and Phoenix are great together because of the relationship Chappie has with Christopher, the knowledge he has of the monsters, he is more than willing to help. Going so far as to contact Christopher and Ollie when Parker returns and giving some advice when Phoenix needs it. No two relationships are the same. It's hard to discuss.
A random dump of notes from my reading (there are a lot of them)...
• A complete list of the triggers involved; Violence (decapitation, gun-related), Mild body horror, Kidnapping, captivity and torture (not explicit) War-related, PTSD, Animal death (fish) Drug use, Accidental misgendering. Kinks/ Fetishes: Breeding, Light BDSM, Non-human genitalia, Temperature difference, Biting/ Marking, Knotting. Mpreg (referenced in dirty talk only). These all came from Dear Monsterfuckers. I want to add assisted suicide (or murder it depends on your perspective).
• I hate the cover for this, it's like Atra Luna Cover Design didn't try or simply wasn't given enough information to create a representative cover.
• The interior design work is gorgeous. The art at the start of each chapter is lovely, it is nice to see an author/designer that places the effort into digital presentation that is traditionally placed onto print editions. In this case, the header details are very well suited to the musically inclined Bud, a dandelion being blown by the wind and sheet music. It is more detailed and thought including than the snowflakes of KbtK.
• I really like the included playlist for Bud. It is just another detail that is nice to be included.
• LOUD. LOUD! PAINFULLY LOUD.
HURTS SO BAD INSIDE MY HEAD.
THE HUMAN WITH THE BEAUTIFUL SKIN AND THE CALM EYES IS BACK.|
HE WON’T TALK TO ME. WHY WON’T HE TALK TO ME?
ACHES SO BAD.
I MISS THE WAY HIS VOICE SHAKES THE WALLS OF MY CAGE, THE VIBRATIONS SOFT AND CALM AGAINST THE SCREAMING IN THE WALLS. — This is faithful to L. Eveland's original formatting and it is the first time the reader is inside Bud's head. There is just so much pain it is palpable. I love and hate it at the same time. Love because is a needed inclusion for the understanding of Bud. Hate because it is just so painful. (Bud)
• "Okay, bud. Just go easy on the leg.”
He’d called me Bud, an unbloomed flower, a thing of unrecognized, secret beauty waiting to sprout. And he was my sunshine.
“Yes,” I rasped. “Call me Bud,” — 😍 I wondered why Bud took to the name so easily. This is perfect and I love it. (Phoenix and Bud)
• He might’ve been a dangerous monster, but there was something about the way the starlight hit his scales that made him beautiful.
Beautiful like belladonna. — Bud ends up surrounded by floral references some by his own choice some not. But he likes them. (Phoenix)
• But it meant something to me, even if the intended meaning was not what I hoped. It was something. Even if I never remembered my song, I would have his stored in my heart forever. — This made me so emotional. Phoenix doesn't know the importance of this moment but the reader does. The song Phoenix sings for Bud is The Weekend's Blinding Lights. (Bud)
• “I ain’t homophobic,” he insisted.
I sighed. “You’re Catholic. Same difference.”
“I like to say I’m a recovering Catholic.” — (Charlie and Phoenix)
• Never make decisions out of desperation, Bud. Remember that. — This is one of the moments where you see some of Axel's ghosts. He can be pretty insightful. (Axel)
• My dog tags dangled, cool against my chest and Bud’s eyes darted to them, a flash of panic across his face. They represented something else for him, a reminder of the cruelty he’d endured. A time I didn’t want him thinking about. I closed a fist around them, hiding them from view for a moment before I took them off, too. — I'm including this because for me this was one of THE moments. For Phoenix removing his dog tags is crossing a line, they are extremely symbolic to him. Once he crosses that line he cannot go back. (Phoenix)
• “Favorite Star Wars movie. Go.”
I blinked. Was he serious? What kind of litmus test was that? “Uh… I’m more of a Star Trek guy.”
“Kirk or Picard?”
“Is that even a question?” I asked, making a face. “Without Kirk, there is no Star Trek.”
Hotdog lifted his hands in a slow clap. “That’s it. We’re keeping him.” — Hotdog... You are a weird creature and I like you. The Trek question is a great question for him to be asking though. The more time we spend with him the more you understand why. (Hotdog and Phoenix)
• There was a light below. No, not a light… A glowing humanoid figure with the most beautiful wings I had ever seen. Delicate horns curled up from the monster’s head into a halo-like shape. The monster lifted its head to look at me. Its face was enchantingly beautiful, androgynous with full lips and expressive eyes. Two sets of arms reached up for me, and a chorus of whispers filled the darkness, the words indiscernible at first until they coalesced into one voice, scratching at my eardrums: “BE NOT AFRAID". — (Christopher, Kissed by the Kringle) At the end of the book there is a Monster Index. One of the entries is UNKNOWN— A winged, four-armed monster with telepathic abilities and a halo encountered in the Michigan base. (Scales and Song) That has to be Eros, whose mate ends up being Chappie. I think the index might just build as the series goes on. Though it would be fun if we get to meet the Easter Bunny.
In Sclaes and Song we meet the author of the newspaper articles, the one from this one and KbtK, his name is Ben 'BJ' Hammond and in L. Eveland's words "I’ve also got something in the works for Ben if he decides to stop being a brat and cooperate. Maybe he just needs a proper brat taming type monster? Who knows?" This might automatically make Ben my favourite human character in the series, I love bratty characters. Ben's newspaper articles to a degree set up the next book or add to the continuing overarching story, of Parker and his chaos. L. Eveland does confirm there is another human we are yet to meet that they want to write a book for. Meaning there should be three more (excluding Hearts and Halos), Hotdog, Ben and our unknown human. Hotdog (aka Robert) is book #4 titled Lassos and Lace and there is a Dragon involved. I'm really looking forward to it, the kinks involved are fun too. *Deep sigh* I just read Dear Monsterfuckers for Hearts and Halos, Charlie's story has body worship. No one writes that.
An eight-point buck stared straight back at me, completely still except for the small clouds of breath coming from his nose. We watched each other in silence for a long moment, the hunter and the prey. I wondered if he knew how vulnerable I was out there. Sure, I had my gun, but I was no hunter, and he wasn’t helpless. Those antlers could easily gore me, and I’d likely bleed out before anyone came looking. Prey didn’t mean helpless. — Phoenix Walker
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from Gay Romance Reviews, and this is my honest review.
A representative gif:
There is context for this but I'm choosing not to include it because why ruin the fun.
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