The Wild Road by Marjorie M. Liu

He is Lannes Hannelore, restorer and repairer of ancient books. But he has a secret he hides from the world. He is a gargoyle, and the face and body he shows the world is no more than a seeming of magic that hides him from those that would hate, hunt or hurt him for his difference. Hiding in plain sight because of an enslavement to a witch who kept him imprisoned in stone for years, he vows never to be taken again.

she woke up in a burning hotel room covered in blood with three dead men. Her memories are gone, and she cannot even remember her own name. Fleeing the scene of the crime, she finds that she has a gun, though it is empty of bullets. All she has is a note, saying, "RUN". She knows no one, and has nowhere to go, so when Lannes finds her on the street, she is suspicious of his motives, but before she can run again, she collapses in his arms.

Lannes finds himself drawn to this woman, so obviously in trouble, and discards his hiding from the world, though not his seeming, to help her discover who she really is and how she wound up in that hotel room. But first he must overcome her distrust and let her allow him to help. He starts with picking the broken glass out of her feet and letting her lock herself into the bathroom to take a shower and change her clothes at the home of his friend, Frederick. But when someone or something opens the door to the house and leaves her another note, telling her to look up a man named Orwell Price and leaving her another directive to "RUN", he decides that the house isn't safe enough and moves Frederick, who is getting on in years and whose hands tremble badly, into a hotel while he and the woman go in search of Price.

Lannes calls one of his brothers, who works for the Detective Agency known as Dirk and Steele, to find Orwell Price. When they find him, however Price shoots Lannes, and something takes the woman over, killing Orwell Price for reasons of revenge. Lannes, who has been lightly reading the mind of this woman, feels the outside presence come in and take her over. When it is gone, she is once again bereft and covered in blood, and blames herself for killing him.

Lannes and the woman flee and he calls his brother to send aid for the both of them. When he passes out in a shopping center parking lot, a woman says she is here for them and takes them to her home. The woman assumes she was sent by Lannes' brother, but the woman has lied and says that the presence taking her over wants to kill Simon, as in Simon Says. But before either Simon or the woman who takes over the woman can finally kill her, she has taken poison and kills herself, dying.

Following a trail of clues, they meet up with the men sent by Lannes' brother, Koni and Rictor, both of whom are somewhat more than human. Koni is a bird-shifter and Rictor seems to be immortal. However, they both seem to recognize her and don't trust her. Lannes has begun calling the woman Lethe, for the River of Forgetfulness in Hades, and the two of them are attracted to each other, and slowly falling in love. But the illusion Lannes wears prevents Lethe from ever truly knowing him, until he can drop it and reveal to her exactly who he is,

But when Koni and Rictor tell Lannes that the girl he calls Lethe is a great-granddaughter of the witch who imprisoned him and his brothers for so many years, can he ever trust her enough to reveal his true self? And will Lethe ever discover who the woman taking her over is, and who the man Simon, who wants to kill her, really is and why he wants her dead? Will Lethe ever recover her memory and find her real family, and will she want to stay with Lannes if she does?

This was a great mystery, with dark things and murderous spirits appearing left, right and center. The idea of a murderer who can take over anyone and be wearing anyone's body has been used before in films, and it was used to excellent effect here, but in this case, it was doubled.

That being said, I didn't get into the Romantic Subplot as easily. Lethe's attraction to Lannes came off more as someone looking for comfort rather than love, and the revelation of her ancestry really came out of left field for me, coming as they did at the end of the story. It smacked of shoe-horning the plot thread in. I was more comfortable with Lethe being a human telekinetic rather than what she was actually revealed to be. It just seemed to have no point to the plot.

Other than that, I really enjoyed the book, and while I can't give it the highest marks, I do rate it rather high on my "enjoyability scale", though more on the strength of the mystery plot than the romantic one.