Snuggling Under Snowdrifts, Book 2
Monster Romance
Date Published: 8/8/2023
I found the most elusive spot to hide from my parent’s cult but in claiming my cave, I accidentally allowed a snow monster to claim me…
Dr. Sydney Decker
Six months ago, Dr. Vera Thompson disappeared into the wilderness to settle with a mysterious “survivalist colony” without a known location. She may have bought their lies, but I was born into an isolated group of religious fanatics and can’t believe Vera would fall into the same trap. Her weak “find my phone app” signal is the lifeline between us, and I won’t stop searching the frigid tundra for her. My best friend helped me escape but now, it’s my turn to save her.
Sergei
Loneliness threatens my sanity with each rejection at the annual mating chase. Females fear my hot temper and need for control, instead of appreciating that I am the biggest and fiercest male chuchunya. I had lost hope I would discover my dushevnayasvyaz or soulmate, but then she found us. This season I find myself breaking the ancient rules and deliberately damaging the rituals I hold dear…at her request. I meant what I said when I promised to rearrange the world to make my dushevnayasvyaz happy, but when will I be pushed too far?
Caught between the regimented conditioning of the clan and the willful spirit of his dushevnayasvyaz, Sergei must choose the order which keeps him stable or his chance at fated love. Will they escape punishment for their deeds or face shunning in a desolate place where community means survival? Will Sydney recognize he’s betraying his kin to win her heart or ignore their bond in fear of losing her independence?
Fluffy Book Boyfriends
What do you call your new book boyfriend? Sasquatch? Bigfoot? Chuchunya? Yeti?
Fuzzy cryptids are as varied as songbirds. No one would mistake a tiny, golden finch for a giant, blue jay. Cryptid terminology depends on their region of the world and their unique adaptations. Bigfoot primarily lives in the Appalachian Mountains of the USA, is known for his foul odor, is tall and lean, and is generally light brown. This is very different from the yeti of the Himalayan Mountains which is white, has more mass and thicker fur, and eats a carnivorous diet. A Chuchunya is a primitive cryptid who raids the nomadic people’s camps on the cold, Siberian tundra according to legend. They are giant humanoids, covered with white, ivory, grey, or black fur with glowing blue eyes. Sasquatch and Chuchunya do not live in mountain regions…they live on the snowy tundra of the Arctic Circle.
How could the myth of the Chuchunya and Sasquatch blend? Migration over the Bering Strait. Paleontologists and Anthropologists (like Dr. Vera, our heroine in Book 1: Cuddling My Chuchunya) are conflicted over a large migration, with people, marched over the ice when Russia was connected to Alaska at the end of the last Ice Age. If it is hypothesized that Homo sapiens migrated with saber tooth tigers, why not chuchunya? The mythical beasts would naturally evolve to be slimmer with black fur and a voracious appetite for fish when the generations adapted to Alaska and the Northwest Territories. I took this into account when writing my clan and made Adrik, the loner from an extinct clan, a true Sasquatch. However, the Chuchunya clan who migrated to the central tundra of Northern Canada (between the Northwest Territories and Nunavut) would maintain their shaggy, white fur and bulky body for hiding under snowdrifts.
Why would a modern heroine sign up to live primitively under the ice?
Dushevnayasvyaz. (Say that three times fast.) This is why I write the “insta-lust” or the “fated mates” trope. Whether he falls first, or they experience love at first sight, I prefer to skip the wooing and go straight to facing adversity as a team. This is easier said than done—especially when writing a snow monster romance.
What is a dushevnayasvyaz? The approximate translation from Russian is soul-bond-bond, so it is the magical mating bond between a Chuchunya and their chosen mate (another monster or human.) They are born with a perfect match—no heart-shaped box of chocolates is required. The dushevnayasvyaz also provided a means to rectify some giant plot holes when writing about getting freaky under the permafrost.
The first glaring problem I found was the cold. Generators and other polluters are responsible for the melting of the permafrost and collapse of the Chuchunya’s homes (just ask Ph.D. Climatologist and heroine of Book 2: Spooning My Chuchunya, Dr. Sydney Decker), so I needed a natural way to keep their human mates warm. Taking off your clothes in negative eighty-degree Fahrenheit temperatures (-62 Celsius) is stupid at best, and fatal at worst. What if this dushevnayasvyaz changed the Chuchunya biology to heat the cave? He would be uncomfortably warm and would know his soulmate on a biological level. They would have all the fun and none of the frostbite.
The second problem is predators. From wolves to polar bears, the tundra has an abundance of hungry animals hunting endangered herbivores. They would love a Chuchunya or a human meal and follow their scents for miles. More important in a romance—how would a heated, furry individual smell after a few months of hibernation? Yikes! The dushevnayasvyaz causes the Chuchunya to emit pheromones in conjunction with his mate’s cycle to not only entice her but also to confuse predators. What’s the scent? Find out in the Snuggling Under Snowdrifts series.
About the Author
Marilyn Barr lives in the wilds of Kentucky with her husband, son, and rescue cats. She has nine books with The Wild Rose Press in multiple romance subgenres from sweet, new adult romance to erotic, fantasy romance. She loves to place monstrous characters with hearts of gold in historical romances and her historical, paranormal romances have won the Crowned Heart Award, 2nd place in National Excellence in Story Telling (NEST) Contest, Imadjinn Award for Best Paranormal Romance, and Grand Finalist for the InD’Tale Magazine’s RONE Award. When engaging in the real world, you can find her with the Kentuckiana Romance Writers, volunteering with her son’s Special Olympics teams, or dancing around her kitchen. She is a sucker (haha) for cheesy horror movies, Italian food, punk music, black cats, bad puns, and all things witchy.
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