Title: Coyote’s Creed ( Broken Mirror Series Book 1 )
Author: Vaughn R. Demont
Cover Art: Angela Waters
Publisher: Samhain Publishing
Buy Link Amazon:
Genre: Urban Fantasy M/M, Shapeshifters
Length: Novel
Rating: 5 out 5 rating stars
A Guest Review by Raine
Summary Review : A fascinating, complicated and creatively self conscious urban fantasy explored through the eyes of a very engaging Coyote con artist.
Blurb:
Always have an ace up your sleeve.
Broken Mirrors, Book 1
If con games were taught in high school, Spencer Crain would be on the honor roll. As it is, he’ll be riding the edge of failure to graduation next month. Then Spence gets the news that his long-gone father is not only dead, but was a Coyote, one of three clans of tricksters in the City.
With a near-catatonic mother on his hands, Spence couldn’t care less about the Coyotes’ ongoing feud with the Phouka and the Kitsune—until it lands on his doorstep. Suddenly he’s thrown headfirst into a dangerous world he knows next-to-nothing about. His only guide is Rourke, dashing King of the Phouka, plus a growing pack of half-siblings, a god, and Fate herself.
As Spence embarks on a journey to learn the Coyote’s creed, the truth about his heritage, and how to handle his growing attraction to Rourke, he wonders when his life turned from TV sitcom to real-life danger zone. And what price must he pay to survive the next roll of the dice…
Product Warnings
Contains PG-13 rated violence, R-rated language and X-rated hotel scenes. Meta-humor, pop-culture humor, utter disregard for the 4th wall abound.
Review:
This excellent book was a complete surprise to me, I had expected something like a familiar shifter novel with coyotes as understudies for the inevitable werewolves. Well, I didn’t get that here and thank you Vaughn R Demont for this small mercy.
Instead Coyote’s Creed is an incredibly self conscious display of clever writing that from the outset destroys the boundaries between reader and the illusion of the book; yes that’s where the fourth wall went…. down into rubble. Through the medium of his wonderful main character Spencer, the author plays his tricks and then breaking the “ First Rule,“ tells you just how he does it……. or does he? It is a book of twists and turns, deceit and conceit, lies, half truths and outright betrayal. There is a satirical, mixed media collage of book, film and TV tropes, pop culture reference and allusion. Meanwhile Spencer tries to make sense of all that happens to him as he, ” Trusts in Fate, “ hoping he is the hero of the book and not a comedy fall guy.
The book begins when Spencer is told his long gone, hurtfully neglectful father is dead. From this moment everything changes. Up to this point Spence had been coping with his life. At eighteen, his familiar everyday world is one where he has to care for his vulnerable mother when she has a fugue like episode, scrounge, con, or steal money to keep things going at home, stay open to sex with girls or boys and hopefully graduate from high school. He does all this in an entertaining and engaging wise guy way. This is his normality and thats how it goes …” Everybody knows that the dice are loaded…“
Suddenly this reality collides with his shocking new world view in which he is no longer simply human and where figures from mythology are -or are not- engaged in the Feud, a bizarre competition involving stories, tricks and japes for complicated reasons of bragging rights and racial honour. While Spence’s occasional honorary Uncle Rourke starts the book in an avuncular role his quite sudden change to a sexually lustful King of the Phouka, cleverly personifies the culture shock Spence and the reader face.
Three main clans, Spence’s own, the Coyotes, the Phouka, a shape shifting off shoot of the Fae and the Kitsune of Japanese fox origins regard humanity as nothing more than marks to practice their tricks on. Coyotes are tricksters whose con games are described ambivalently as catalysts of change,
Think of everyone’s life as a story. Your people, their purpose is to move those stories forward.
A strange value system is revealed where stories and successful tricks are all valuable currency in a never ending game of one-upmanship. The Mount Everest of achievement is tricking a Ra’ keth a sorcerer-” someone who see through all of your tricks.“ Likewise the story of such a victory – ” The Emerald in the Snow “– is regarded with awe and jealously guarded.
As Spencer learns about his strange new heritage, so does the reader, again layers of myth, fable and creation stories are intermingled in this rich palimpsest of an urban fantasy world. He finds he has new and unexpected gifts, one of the best is that of a Bard and his curses come delightfully true. Later in the book, the Coyote Challenge involves an imaginative reinvention of the traditional telling of riddles into a battle of inappropriate blond jokes but with very high stakes.
How he gains his knowledge is contrived with a series of complicated, amusing but increasingly serious events and is never just told with a heavy hand. For all that the creative illusion is frequently broken, there is no alienation here because we are closely sharing what Spencer discovers. I felt no disassociation from him , as he traipsed about on his ” potentially lethal scavenger hunt .” The background music to his quest is not his first choice AC/DC, but rather the soundtrack rap he uses in his card trick cons, ” Wonder Boy. ” Consequently, Tenacious D, an anthemic mock rock band adds it’s satirical voice to the mix.
We go along for the wild, lustful ride as Spence discovers gay sex in some quite raw and moving encounters with Rourke. He is a gorgeous character, a randy Irish King who can shift into a dog or black horse and has all the tragic poetry of Keats in his back story.
Spence’s relationship with Rourke had me shutting off the Kindle at various points as I worried about the emotional tangles. For this is a relationship under construction. The affair moves along from rampant lust through guilt to a genuine affection that reveals much about Spence’s personality. For all of his eighteen year old sexual opportunism he has a genuine emotional conscience. Indeed that along with a kindness that he displays under the most testing circumstance are his defining characteristics for me.
Eventually he has collected just enough knowledge to move from the reactive to the active and the story explodes into action. He confronts various incredibly unpleasant relatives, issues of mortality, resurrection and immortality while setting up his first truly big con trick, and despite setbacks works towards the end game.
Spence’s father, Justin Crain is one of the few bad characters I’ve found to be properly and believably despicable. Spence’s loving relationship with his mother provides the book with elements of humour, tension and very moving pathos.
There is an amazing cast of characters – family, friends, enemies, rivals, gods, sorcerers – myth and legend all come and go with energy and creative integrity. Indeed smoke and mirrors transform mythic archetypes back into believable characters. The stylish Kitsune Shiko plays a cohesive part in the fun and games, providing some explanations, linking past and present and hopefully the future……..for this is only Book One!
Recommended
I think the stunning cover for Coyote’s Creed is now one of my favourites.
I enjoyed this book too – very different from many and kudos for pulling off such difficult review 🙂
Thanks Sirius, I’m so pleased this was a good one for you and thanks for listening to all those whining emails! 😮
Raine, I remember one very well justified email, not all those emails lol. Do I need to remind you how much of my whining you patiently listen to? :wave:
Seriously, it is a great help, thank you so much 😀
I have been eying this book for some time and now you convinced me completely to jump right in! I think I’ll love this book. Thank you!
The first time I read this it was just not what I’d been expecting- it took a little while for me to get with the layered writing. I usually speed read and I just had to slow down and savour it……really hope you enjoy it LadyM.
Ooh, looks like a must read – thank you for the review!
Hello Pea,
it’s very different to the M/M romances I’ve been reading recently- and such a quality read. Hope you like it. 🙂
Raine
You hit on all the elements I found fascinating about this book. I had read another book by Vaughn Demont which I loved, House of Stone, and I was pissed when someone told me that the next book in the series was M/f.
I loved, loved this complex book – but then Demont never writes anything that’s straightforward. 😀
BTW Raine, I noticed you indicated that the Amazon link is not available but the book is available on Amazon.
Oh thanks Wave -I must read Houses of Stone now.
Funny you should mention m/f it is possible I might have found one in my waiting for review pile……how unusual. I’ll email you!
Grrrr Amazon Link I’ll try again. :wallbash:
Lol, Wave, I know, why must they mess up a good thing and add the m/f mix into it?
Oh! Must have! Finally something different! It sounds really good! Thanks for the review Raine!
Google the word different and you might find Coyote’s Creed illustrated there! Hope it’s a difference you like Larissa. 😀
Thanks for the review Raine, this sounds right up my alley (love the “utter disregard for the 4th wall” aspect) – really looking forward to this read, it’s now waiting on my Kindle 🙂 Will check back in here after reading.
BTW – agree the cover art is stunning.
Thanks Dianne, I would really appreciate some feedback. I think it is very hard to pull off this meta- fiction technique without causing some reader detachment from the story but for me Demont really is successful.
I fell for the cover originally and confess I hardly read the blurb…… yep shallow.
Wow, I don’t have the words for how awesome that difficult review was. Not only did you deliver the info of a good review, but your word choice mimicked the layered conceptual reality you spoke about. Wow,just WOW!
Yes, I will be reading this book. I may need help synthesizing it when I’m done though.
:god: Great Job, thank you very much!
Hey Reggie I have to say that my 3am struggles with this review now seem worth it. Thank you very much indeed. :blush:
I so hope you enjoy it.
Thanks for the review! I initially passed right by this book (shapesfifters kind of bore me), but now I definitely want to read it!
Hello GR
this is just not a usual shapeshifter book, I made exactly the same mistake and my preconceptions took a bit of time to get over……where oh where was the were…..type thoughts. 😀
I would put this firmly in an urban fantasy genre. The shape changing is all linked to mythic beings not the usual Alpha / Omega stuff. ( Which I still love….)
Let me know what you think.
I’ve not been feeling the love for books for ages but this review makes the book sound so awesome, I’m definitely going to get it! Thank you! 😀
I have had echoes of that feeling Leslie, but I’ve hit a couple of really enjoyable ones recently which lifted me lot.
I think this book could stand outside the genre but the sex would probably exclude that happening.
Please let me know if it works for you.
Oh yay! I just picked this one up and was hoping it’d be good. 😀
Merith, here’s hoping you agree with me that it is just that. Enjoy.
🙂
I’m half-way through the story and loving this too. The world building is as much a character as Rourke or Spencer (haven’t met Shiko yet) because it is believably complex and drives the story.
I agree Merrian the world building is done with finesse and no clunky info dumps.
I am rarely thrilled that a book is part of a series as I hate waiting, but in this case I really want to see how Spence develops.
Raine,
Thanks for the review. Im gonna check this one out. An amazing cover goes a long way. This one is very nice.
About the cover….I showed a friend saying how great I thought it was……friend looked at it intently and said how unusual, he is fully clothed…….I actually hadn’t registered that subtle difference to the norm 😕
I loved this book when it was a free serial, and was happy to pay for it when it was picked up and published. In fact, I recommended it and House of Stone way back when, as stories about Fae characters that weren’t stereotypical. I’m so glad to see this story get such a great review and I hope it becomes a big success for the author. I’m looking forward to reading more of his work in the future.
OMG, someone else who remembers seeing this on Free Fiction Friday! (I think there were only like… 20 subscribers to that?) I ended up buying this one too, and it’s so well-edited in the final version, and the cover, well, that’s practically worth the price of admission. 🙂
Most of all, I’ve been a UF fan for a while and it’s great to FINALLY see some UF with a gay protagonist. (Ok, Spencer is bi, but close enough.)
Not just Urban Fantasy with a bi hero but such very strong UF. I really felt that with this treatment of it he brought something very interesting to the genre.
Free Fiction Friday sounds amazing. 🙂
I am really going to have to read House of Stone, you and Wave have both recommended it. 😀 I agree he is a very talented writer and will be a must buy in the future for me too.
Thanks AndyB
He’s actually written a few other stories based in the same setting, but it’s his earlier work, not as strong as House of Stone and Coyote’s Creed. The Last Paladin series is pretty good, though.
Thanks Tim, I’ll check it out. 🙂
I read this over the weekend and LOVED it. Wonderful characters, world-building, the whole enchilada. Thanks for the review!
Thank you very much for letting me know what you thought Pea. I’m really pleased you enjoyed it as much as me. 🙂
Checking back in after reading…WOW!!
As Pea said, the whole enchilada! An element I especially liked was the way that the reader found out all of the details of Spence’s “mythical” world at the same time he did (except for the Emerald story, which I suspect we are being kept out of the loop on purposefully :wink:) Also loved the laugh out loud humor in Spence’s narrative 😀 The author gave us a satisfying ending to this particular tale of Spencer’s while leaving loads of “open threads” to follow-up on in sequels. I’m looking forward to those! The whole book was written in a perfect style.
I am so very glad that I read your review Raine because I had passed over this one a few times prior – probably because my experience with shifter stories has been so hot or cold. I will definitely check out Demont’s other work. 🙂
Hey Dianne T
it is such a relief when after really caring and shouting about a book, you get positive feedback. I know any input is interesting, but such well reasoned enthusiasm is lovely. Thank you so much.
I read your review after the November Recommended Reads posted — I missed it altogether last month. Delighted to have been guided to spend the past several hours tangled in this engaging story. The cover is gorgeous and it kept popping up in my Amazon recommendations, but I was also resisting shifters. I’m not regretful of the timing because it gave me this “free” (well certain things procrastinated) day to savor the magic of this particular tale. Your review beautifully describes something of the particular charm, wit, talent, bravado, and humanity of the protagonist (and the author). Thanks! Happy New Year!
Hello Karen,
this is a great comment to get to start the new year. Thanks very much. I’m so pleased you found and enjoyed Coyote’s Creed, it is one of the books that really stands out for me from the reviews I’ve done for Wave.
Heres to us both finding more like this one in 2012. 😀