A Malicious Menagerie
Fangs & Fables, #1
Josie Ryann
Publisher: Self-published
Publication date: Sept. 1, 2025
Genre: Fantasy Romance
Rating:
Welcome to the menagerie, and please, mind the fangs…Twenty-two-year-old Anna Carmichael is down on her luck. Even juggling three dead-end jobs, she’s struggling to keep herself and her ailing grandmother afloat. When she’s offered a position as caretaker for an eccentric rich man’s collection of exotic animals, she jumps at the opportunity despite the ominous nondisclosure agreement. The reason for all the secrecy is revealed when Anna discovers that the residents of Mars Mathis’s Mystical Menagerie aren’t exotic—they’re mythological.
Her boss’s chilling warnings leave no doubt—these creatures are his property, and he’ll protect them at any cost. Anna’s moral compass shatters as she befriends the very beings she’s meant to cage. And an unexpected but irresistible passion ignites with Chase, the enigmatic wolf, as powerful and protective as he is trapped. Caught between her unwavering loyalty to her grandmother, the menagerie’s deadly threats, and a love bound by iron bars, Anna must decide—what is she willing to sacrifice?
My thoughts…
This book started out great. It was dark, messed up, and everything a menagerie should be – especially one that specializes in mythological creatures. Intelligent creatures that know they were kidnapped and are being held against their will for the enjoyment of others.
The whole menagerie, and the way the owner liked to host fundraiser nights every month for rich people to come in, gawk, and sometimes have special interactions with the captives, left a bad taste in my mouth. However, that was why this was so good. I wasn’t supposed to forget that they were prisoners of someone who saw them as nothing more than creatures to own. They had families and lives that they were ripped away from when they were kidnapped. So, seeing this darker side really brought it all together and made me feel for everyone being held in that warehouse.
Now, with that said, the book started to lose its spark toward the end. It was as if the author stopped writing for a while, then picked it back up and forgot the tone she had set. What was once dark and uncomfortable was now light and heavy with romance.
Anna is practically getting it on with the werewolf in his enclosure. They’re whispering about being together forever. When they escape, they have this whole romantic tryst as if they aren’t on the run from a sadistic man who wouldn’t bat an eyelash at killing her and throwing the werewolf back in a cage.
So why are we acting like we have all the time in the world for romance when you need to be hustling?
See, that’s when the story started to lose me. It lost that dark spark for me. A menagerie isn’t supposed to be sparkles and little confetti hearts, and I felt like that’s what we got during the last third to quarter of the book.
