Review: "Rubber Duckie Shifter Next Door" by Mia Harlan

Rubber Duckie Shifter Next Door by Mia Harlan
Published May 2024 via Mia Books
★★★

Rachel is struggling to find her footing as the part-time guardian to her best friend's kids, and she doesn't have time to date—unless, as it turns out, there are rubber ducks involved.

I read this because I cannot resist the weird: I've read my fair share of dinosaur erotica, so rubber duckie romance seemed like a natural next step. In Rubber Duckie Shifter Next Door, Sig is (you guessed it) a shifter, and he shifts not into a werewolf or whatever else is popular these days but into (you guessed it again!) a rubber duck. Now, the logic of this shifter world is a little vague; readers are meant to take Sig's explanations about how, when shifters develop their powers, they shift into their favorite thing (Sig really, really loves rubber ducks). I'm not quite sure what the advantages of this sort of shifter life are: Sig doesn't need air, which could be handy, but in his shifted form he can't move or speak or do anything autonomous, really. Makes you wonder what would happen if, say, someone picked him up while he was in duck form and locked him in a box...wouldn't even have to be nefarious! Could just be a kid told to clean up. (I can't help but think that if I'd grown up in his world, I'd try to cultivate an intense interest in something that would be practical to shift into.)

It's an odd little story, and it's meant to be an odd little story (an...odd duck of a story?). The romance relies heavily on a 'fated mates' concept, which is not one that I've read much of (just, like...Twilight...which I can't image is the best example...) but seems to be a speculative-fiction form of instalove. Your mileage may vary—fortunately I wasn't looking for much in the romance department (being in it, again, for the weird); also fortunately, the lusting happens only between humans, as Rachel is intrigued by shifting abilities but mercifully not turned on by yellow rubber bath toys.

Meanwhile, my library has acquired several more of Harlan's oddities in the past couple of days...does this mean that I'm fated to read more inanimate-object-shifter-fated-mate stories? Only time will tell.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.