#BlogTour-‘The Beauty Of The Wolf’ by Wray Delaney

HQ stories kindly provided me with this copy of the beautifully packaged ‘The Beauty Of The Wolf’ by Wray Delaney

Wray is the pen name of Sally Gardner, most notable for her children’s fiction, however, this is her second adult novel and absolutely not for children for reasons which will be delved into further on…

About the book…

‘What some might call beauty, I find monstrous’

In the age of the Faerie Queene, Elizabeth I, Lord Francis Rodermere starts to lay waste to a forest. Furious, the sorceress who dwells there scrawls a curse into the bark of the first oak he fells: A faerie boy will be born to you whose beauty will be your death. Ten years later, Lord Rodermere’s son, Beau is born – and all who encounter him are struck by his great beauty. Meanwhile, many miles away in a London alchemist’s cellar lives Randa – a beast deemed too monstrous to see the light of day. And so begins a timeless tale of love, tragedy and revenge…

A stunning retelling of Beauty and the Beast

‘The Beauty of the Wolf’ is every bit as rich and stunning as you would expect from having read Sally Gardner’s other works, hwever, I can see from other reviews that some readers regarded it as Y.A. It is absolutely an adult novel, as apart from the language and sexual content,it reads like one.

However, I can completely appreciate the confusion as there have been quite a few retellings of fairy tales, most of which have been aimed at the Y.A market over the last year-but I personally think it unfair to judge a book by its (rather luscious) cover design.

The book is full of allegories-set in the time of Elizabeth the 1st, this is world where ‘modern’ thinking is set against superstition, old ways versus new.

And, as usual, when the world changes it is the rights of  women and the ways of nature which get steamrolled over in man’s urge to build the tallest house (the House of Three Turrets in this case) or subvert long held beliefs (the treatment of the Widow Bott, midwife and herbalist).

Warned not to cut down any more sacred oaks by the sorceress who lives in the forest, the arrogant and cruel Lord Rodermere ignores her pleas and invites a curse upon his family.

However, as with the best of fairy tales, there is not always a cut and dried solution to the curse. Firstly, the son,Beau, whose beauty will be not only the undoing of him but also the death of his father,is not easily conceived so the sorceress and fae folf intervene.Then, the wording of the sorceress’ plea, written in gold on an oak tree chopped down by Rodermere, is open to interpretation…

I genuinely loved this book, the twist on the tale, the historical setting, the unsahamedly feminist plot-I finished the book wanting more!
It’s very intimate, as though written like a bedtime story for adults and manages to weave together a time of upheaval (the destruction of the monasteries courtesy of Elizabeth’s father)the destruction of the environment and themes of greed and selfishness so well that you cannot see the stitiching.

And at the centre of it is Beau, the child whose beauty will kill his father (almost like a reverse Medusa)and Randa, daughter of an alchemist left to fend for herself  after her father is taken by Rodermere,in a world where beauty and appearance is prized more than moral fibre or character.

Their story is the beating heart of ‘The Beauty of the Wolf’ and this is what I loved most of all-it is the centre of this forest entangled by the machinations of all around them that keeps you reading to the very last page.

As always, this is just this humble reader’s opinion, but I would recommend this if you enjoy the work of Katherine Dunn, Angela Carter,Theodora Goss and Sarah Waters.

My thanks to Lily at HQ stories for my gifted copy to review.

About the Author…

Sally Gardner grew up and still lives in London. Being dyslexic, she did not learn to read or write until she was fourteen and had been thrown out of several schools, labeled unteachable, and sent to a school for maladjusted children. Despite this, she gained a degree with highest honors at a leading London art college, followed by a scholarship to a theater school, and then went on to become a very successful costume designer, working on some notable productions.

After the births of twin daughters and a son, she started first to illustrate and then to write picture books and chapter books, usually with fairytale- or otherwise magical subject matter. She has been called ‘an idiosyncratic genius‘ by London’s Sunday Times.

Links-https://www.sallygardner.net/

Twitter @HQstories

@TheSallyGardner