Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance is not my typical read, but I’m glad I ventured into it. A Tarzan fan from my grade school days, I confess to a fondness for feral children, and the hero of this book is truly a child of extraordinary circumstance.
Born with extraordinary abilities and orphaned as a youngster, he lives with a pack of wolves for several years, and his first contact with another human is Mary, a child who delivers meat to him and his wolf family on her bicycle. His interactions with her begin his reintegration into human society—but at a significant cost to him. Weylyn is an guileless creature who is wounded by others, and yet remains kind to animals and humans alike while maintaining an extraordinary bond with nature.
The book is a multiple point-of-view story that reveals the heart of the hero, Weylyn Gray, through the people whose lives intersect his over nearly fifty years. It also combines aspects of coming-of-age fiction, eco fiction, fantasy, magical realism, a slow-burn romance, and the trials of learning to love oneself. This is a touching, compassionate story that will resonate with many readers. I find it as sweet and charming as I find one of my all-time favorite reads (read many times over), The Sword in the Stone (the first in the series of books of T. H. White’s The Once and Future King), the book the Disney movie The Sword in the Stone is based on.
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Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance (St. Martin’s Press, November 14, 2017) is available through:
Your local independent bookseller | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
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