Title The Veligent Author Melody Peña Illustrator Melody Peña Publisher Windstone Editions - 2018 First Printing Windstone Editions - 2018
	Title Rue Day Author Melody Peña Illustrator Melody Peña Publisher --- First Printing ---
	Category Fantasy Warnings None Main Characters Kade, Lord Ayonah, King Serence Main Elements Shapeshifters, magical creatures, gods, and more Website windstoneeditions.com/reptangle/

The Veligent

I'll start off by admitting I'm biased, I've been collecting Windstone since I first found the young peacock dragon while on a trip to Florida in '89. Unfortunately the low Canadian dollar and the international shipping means I cannot indulge my urges to collect them all, but when I saw there was a physical version of the first Reptangle book I couldn't resist asking for it for Christmas. And then reading it right away (I had to force myself to not read it all in one sitting). It was so much fun, the humour had me laughing all the way through, and the artwork, simply amazing. And Kade has a mustache, just a little blond fuzz of a thing that's nearly impossible to see most of the time, but how often does one run across mustaches these days? And poads...I didn't think I'd ever buy one of the figurines but now that I know more about them, I want one...I want a bunch of them. Just make sure you never ask a question where the answer is "No" in their vicinity...you'll have to read the book to find out why.

Did I mention the artwork? Not only are the characters and creatures well drawn but wow, the backgrounds, your eyeballs almost melt at all the colours and details (and the eyeballs that stare back at you throughout). Of course there's also the worldbuilding, coming up with such whimsical things as living beds (some of which can have bad attitudes and may not let you in/out), or slimy fish like things that are always smiling and you can use to clean persistent stains out of your clothing. And there isn't grass or snow, but a kind of white furry coating on everything. And there are flying meerkats and speak in emojis and evil horned wolf demons with the saddest expressions I've ever seen.

And then there's Kade, he's a goofball and he knows it, but he's a smart goofball and is surprisingly good at getting people out of messes, and generally avoid them himself, though it can be dangerous being around him, having a talent for somehow getting other people in trouble! But he's absolutely adorable and his relationship with is brother is great, they get on each other's nerves of course, and his brother is easily embarrased by Kade's antics, but you can tell they still love each other. In fact even as they deal with demons, the book just gives one happy fuzzy feelings.

There is a second book, Rue Day, that can be read online on the Windstone website, in fact The Veligent is available there too, but I'm hoping it will come out in a physical book form too since there's just something about holding a real book in your hands, the smell of the paper, and being able to read it anywhere away from a computer, and of course if you order from the site it even comes signed! I also got a gorgeous bookmark (and by coincidence I had just been looking for bookmarks, wonder if Peña sells others) and a lovely card with Ayonah in his khirin-lion form.