REVIEW: ShapeShifter: The Demo Tapes, Year 1 by Susan Helene Gottfried

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My Rating: 6 out of 10 stars

This collection of short stories introduces the reader to the world of Trevor Wolff and Mitchell Voss, and their rock band ShapeShifter. They were originally published at the online blog of author Susan Helen Gottfried, The Meet & Greet at West of Mars, so many of the visitors to that site—fondly referred to as groupies—might already be familiar with them. Since I never really liked reading online, I wasn't much of a groupie myself, so I was happy to see this collection come out so I could find out what all the fuss was about. ;)

Trevor's the kind of character you love to hate... he's rude and obnoxious, but underneath it all, has a heart of gold. There's not a whole lot of substance to most of these stories, they're just sort of the day-to-day of these characters, an introduction in preparation for the book she later published, Trevor's Song. That's not to say that Trevor, Mitchell, and the gang don't have fun, or manage to get themselves into some funny or sticky situations. For that they certainly do, but it's hard to critique this book like a book when there wasn't really a plot or anything. So just take it for what it is... and if you like the characters enough to want to follow along and see what happens from here, pick up the next 2 years of Demo Tapes, along with Trevor's Song. Actually they're all being offered FREE (in digital or ebook format) at Smashwords until the end of July. Refer to each individual book page for the code to add to your cart. I grabbed them myself and since this was a fairly quick read, plan to catch up more on Trevor and the gang over the course of the next year. :)

PS - Up until I read this book, I was convinced Trevor was a werewolf. I mean, who wouldn't with the surname of Wolff and band name of ShapeShifter, right? But this book set me straight and I was a wee bit disappointed to discover the characters were just regular joes like you and me.

BookCrossing journal page for this book