This cannot be happening. Maybe it’s a bizarre dream. But even in a dream, there’s no way that I can possibly let a pigeon sleep on my bed. It’s like having a flying cockroach in my bed. Just, no. I try to shoo it away, grimacing as my fingers touch its grey and black wings. I tell myself it’s a clean pigeon. Those exist, right? Oh, no. What if it pooped on my bed?
― Bridget E. Baker, My Pigeon Familiar
I thought I was reading a romance as I got this as part of a free romance novel giveaway. I also thought I was reading a standalone book. The premise sounds good: a witch with limited control of her powers tries to increase her social and professional capital at work by bonding a familiar, but the spell fails and she accidentally bonds with a pigeon. Despite hating it, she gradually learns to appreciate her new partner when it saves her from an attack.
The main plot is about magical royalty, specifically, Dragon-shifter royalty. Roxana, a rare female Dragona, runs away from her arranged marriage to the head of the Russian dragon shifter mafia. She hides out with Minerva, a supernatural cop and her only normie friend. Roxana then becomes indebted to everyone who must keep her secret, which includes Minerva’s brother and their mutual friends. As this is the first book in the series, most of the book is spent on building out the cast of characters. Nearly everyone in this friend group is a child of a supernatural being (vampire, werewolf, mage, demon) and a human. They have some powers, but either they cannot use them to their full potential or they refuse to, such as the half-vampire Isaac and the half-demon, Bevin.
While the author tried to give all of the characters adequate time on the page, the only one with a compelling story is Bevin, the half-demon who is trying to live her life without succumbing to her demonic nature. There are at least six points of view, and everyone is young people of the same age, which makes each POV fairly repetitive. The book is very low angst with some interesting world-building, but the cliffhanger at the end is too little, too late. While the story does touch on some interesting social topics, it is not interesting enough for me to want to read the sequel.
