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Flipping the Birdie
S.L. Woeppel, author

Adult; Romance; (Market)

When there are rumors that your lady parts will crush a man’s package, finding love can be difficult. Superspeed, incredible strength, a foul mouth—these are thirty-one-year-old superhero Birdie Bowden’s powers. Although Birdie boasts a perfect save record as Chicago’s municipal super, her bad attitude and latest, now viral, run-in with a local menace leads the mayor to place her on suspension. Forced into therapy in a small beachside suburb, the solitary Birdie meets eccentric, bubbly housekeeper Evie. Adrift without her job, Birdie leaves her superhero identity behind and accepts Evie’s invitation to stay with her for the summer cleaning beach cabins while working the therapy program as a means to get her job back. The only snag in her plan is Aiden, Evie’s ill-tempered, unfairly handsome brother and cabin-owner. Focused on helping his sister wage her own battle of healing, Aiden finds Birdie to be an irksome, unwelcome influence and doesn’t hesitate to tell her so. But that’s fine with Birdie—her natural ability to constantly get a rise out of grumpy Aiden may be her greatest superpower yet. As Birdie fumbles through her therapist’s ridiculous get-to-know-the-real-Birdie assignments, she feels a growing connection to her new life, including the increasingly alluring Aiden, and a yearning for more than being a super. But she can’t have both lives, and she’ll never reveal her true identity—because the only thing faster than her own speed is how quickly people, particularly men, leave when they realize she’s not your typical heroine.
Reviews
Woeppel debuts with a playful, high-energy romance that finds the incredibly strong Birdie—a female superhero known as the Chicago Bird—put on hold by the mayor, thanks to the slew of complaints pouring in about her foul mouth and bad attitude. Meanwhile, her personal life suffers when a television rumor about “the strength of her vagina” goes viral, making her forced sabbatical all the more debilitating. During her compulsory therapy sessions in a nearby suburban resort town, Birdie learns she must cast her superpowers aside and start dating. That adjustment comes with its own comedy of errors, including a new friendship, a more conventional job, and, of course, unexpected sparks with the resident woodworker, Aiden.

Woeppel’s worldbuilding embraces both the silly superhero and summer romance aesthetics in a contemporary setting, with bold characters like Birdie’s sassy gay superhero bestie Jace and new local drama buddy Evie, as well as a collection of hilariously sketched minor characters, many of whom materialize during Birdie’s unsuccessful dates. The banter between Aiden and Birdie shines, both in its initial rudeness and its slow transformation into flirtation, though their actual sexual scenes melt into a more generic desire and lose some of that fizzle. Birdie’s backstory carries weight, but it never dominates, playing out in her memories of her mother’s fear at her daughter’s changes and a sweet 16 romance that foundered amid the discovery of her growing powers.

This is a gentle critique of societal constraints on women’s behavior, and Woeppel’s upbeat message—that accepting yourself, vulnerabilities and all, should be the only goal—broadcasts clearly through Birdie’s ultimate success at finding love while refusing to compromise her own superhuman strength. The transformation she undergoes in her own eyes—and in Chicago’s view—is intense, rendering Aiden’s whispered exhortation to “never let them tame you” a potent reminder of the power that comes with self-discovery.

Takeaway: Playful superhero romance with an undercurrent of feminist empowerment.

Comparable Titles: Alice Winters’s A Villain for Christmas, Laura Thalassa’s Reaping Angels.

Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A

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