The Claws of the Ounce

This book will be on preorder until December 4, 2025.

The myth of the full moon is just that: a myth. However, the lives of some shapeshifters are ruled by cycles much subtler and more vicious than a simple rock in space could ever provide.

Ash knows she can’t trust herself. In an effort to atone for a childhood “crime”, she constantly watches her every move for ulterior motives. Immediate capitulation to the desires of those around her is the only way she can be sure she won’t hurt anyone.

Things get infinitely worse after she undergoes a feline transformation on the night of her parents finally kicking her out. Her new awareness of her monstrousness drives her to flee absolutely everything and everyone she knows, starting a new life in the Niagara region.

In this bizarre new reality, Ash doesn’t know who to trust. Her new roommate, with her excessive kindness? The lion-man she runs into one night who offers to teach her more about their kind? Or should she reject them both and live a life of loneliness?

When she meets a researcher with a prospect of a cure, the promise of atonement leads her right into the hunter’s sights.

This story contains:

• An unorthodox take on therianthropy-as-infection
• C-PTSD + anxiety rep
• A nonlinear recovery arc
• A shady monster-researching organization
• Lots of South Ontarian locales
• Animal-to-other-animal shapeshifters
• Snow / mountain imagery

Content warnings:

• Emotional, verbal, and physical abuse from parents and other authority figures
• Unhealthy attitudes and behaviours regarding food
• Blood and gore
• Suicidal ideation
• Ableism
• Body horror
• Mouth trauma
• Kidnapping
• Murder
• Alcohol use
• Animal death (no pets, mostly happens offscreen)
• Guns
• Descriptions of derealization
• Mentions / threats of non-consensual surgery
• Mentions / threats of institutionalization
• Unreality? (Ash often doubts her perceptions, but everything she experiences is in fact real)