Flipping the Bird by Carrie Pulkinen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Alice Crawford is a crow shifter who enjoys dumpster diving for people’s trash which she can turn into someone else’s treasure through her art and Donovan Drake is a warlock who has just inherited the deed to a mansion, but when both of them meet, it is not what they expected in the slightest.

The story starts with Alice stuck in a hunters trap she has unwittingly been caught in thanks to her crow’s inability to ignore something shiny! As her best friend comes to her rescue, although she is giggling as much as a racoon can, she shifts and helps her out of the trap and to the creek where she can heal in its magical waters, it does take longer to heal than it used to and this worries the two friends even more than the trap did, it seems to be that the creek is getting worse, it slowly had been for the last few months and it had not been shifting its direction like it should either. The town is known for this shift in direction and it is also its namesake, but now that it is getting smaller and less powerful, the tourism they rely on is stopping and it is making it difficult for the town to survive and no matter who has tried to reinvigorate it, nobody has been able to help, it turns out that only a member of the towns founding family and unfortunately they can’t be contacted.

As she returns home from the creek, she is distracted by a light on in that family’s mansion and she decides to go and investigate, but when she gets there, she sees that it isn’t who she was expecting, but he is a bit of eye candy nonetheless, but when she sees the talking mongoose who is with him, she is even more confused, especially when said mongoose attacks her and tries to eat her, lets just say she is not happy and attacks him in a way only a bird can. She decides to leave after that, but is distracted by something shiny in the bin and as that is something she can take, she does.

The nest day, she goes into work and talks to her best friend about the information she had gleaned about the new arrival which she found out that morning, but it not what either of them were hoping for, he isn’t a member of the family and that puts them back to square one, but when the bell goes to say someone has come into the shop, they hide that disappointment. Donovan decides to go into town with his mongoose and familiar Marty and have a coffee while he thinks about his situation and how the town’s magical creek might be able to help, but is distracted by the cloud of noxious gas his familiar has released, he decides that to find the amulet he has lost and when he spots the salvage art shop across the road, he decides to go and ask them and ask for some advice. This is where the story takes and unusual turn as a magical accident occurs during the conversation and Alice’s crow transfers to Donovan and he shifts into the form, this is as surprising as it gets and as they try to catch him, Marty escapes and causes more chaos, when things return to something like normal, then Donovan asks Alice to go to dinner with him to try and figure out what happened.

Will this be the beginning of a beautiful romance, or will secrets and their pasts come back to haunt them and will Shift Creek lose it’s namesake or can a solution be found? This is a heartwarming tale of mishaps, discovery, romance and revelations which will have you laughing along the way.

Reviewed by @roxsannel

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