Common Name

Two pandas walked into a Maine fishing town. Only one of them is a bear.

A Bad Little Falls Shifter Romance

Same name. Nothing else.

Tim Chen is a six-foot-two giant panda omega. He bought Doc Hadley's vet practice on a whim in August, planted forty culms of bamboo behind it the same month, and has been building a life in coastal Maine he didn't know he was allowed to want. He eats almost continuously. He trips over the boot scraper at least twice a week. He lives for Saturday mornings in the grove.

Kai Tobgay is a five-foot-four red panda alpha. He arrived the twenty-eighth of December with a Bronco Sport full of file boxes, a signed lease, and a contract to teach third grade and gym. He files everything. He comes down trees headfirst. He is the only living member of his entire taxonomic family, and he is happy to explain this to anyone who confuses him with the bear who stole his name.

For three weeks Kai's morning commute has cut past Tim's bamboo grove. For three weeks he has disciplined himself east toward the school without following the scent. On a Saturday in January with margin in it, he turns.

The bond catches before either of them stands back up.

What follows is winter in Maine in a town that has been waiting for this. Mother FaceTimes audible from three rooms over. A chalkboard betting pool at the diner. A red panda who does not, at any point, try to fix or rescue or pity a giant panda omega who is exactly the correct size. A bamboo grove growing through the snow. A baby the size of a stick of butter.

Welcome to Bad Little Falls. It's a small town at the end of a road in Downeast Maine where fate puts the right people in each other's path. The wolverine who runs the diner remembers your coffee order from October. The deputy files every incident in a black binder. The bookshop on Dock Street has been open twenty-four hours since 1978. Nobody is cruel. Every couple finds their bond. Every story ends warm. It's a place to come back to.

Common Name is a warm, comedy-forward M/M omegaverse shifter romance with fated mates, fast-arriving mpreg, two competent adults who arrived in town already having done their work, and a guaranteed happily ever after. Ninth in the Bad Little Falls series. Reads as a standalone: every book in the series stands on its own. Includes the bonus short story Ailuridae at the front (Kai's first morning in town, also published at the back of Resting State) and The List at the back (Ezra Sharpe in Portland, setting up the next book in the series).

The taxonomy is irrelevant. The bond holds.