The Beauty of the Wolf
'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
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WRAY DELANEY is the pen name of Sally Gardner, the award-winning children’s novelist, who has sold over 2 million books worldwide and been translated into 22 languages. She lives in East Sussex, and this is her second adult novel.
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2019
Copyright © Wray Delaney 2019
Wray Delaney asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Ebook Edition © February 2019 ISBN: 9780008217389
‘Shades of Sarah Waters … irresistible’
Guardian
‘Compelling’
Sarra Manning, Red
‘A bawdy, romping affair’
The Times
‘This is one hell of a read’
Sun
‘A fun, explicit romp with real stakes that will have you trying to finish this book in one sitting’
Stylist
‘An irresistible world to drop into’
Emerald Street
‘An amazing book… like a box of treasures’
Meg Rosoff
To Julia, the wisest woman I know, whose love
and patience have been my greatest anchor.
Contents
When I go musing all alone
Thinking of divers things fore-known.
When I build castles in the air . . .
THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY ROBERT BURTON
I woke when the mighty oak screamed.
No mortal heard the sound those roots made when their weighty grip upon the soil was lost to them. No mortal saw the desperate clawing at the earth, the very life snapping from the trunk as the ground crumbled, shivered with the cacophony of destruction. How could I sleep, tell me, for it had awakened the very rage in me.
My oak trees outlive men by hundreds of years, yet it is these mortals with but a few seasons to their names that claim the wisdom of God in their insect hours upon this earth.
I have no time for sweet, enchanting tales that fool the reader with lies and false promises. Too long I have lived and seen, and seen yet never said, been counselled strong to leave off the telling of my tale. What care have I for such timid sentiments? Let the Devil make his judgment.
Do you not know me? I was born from the womb of the earth, nursed with the milk of the moon. Flame gave me three bodies, one soul. In between lies my invisibility. I am the maiden, the mother, the crone, in all I am one. You think that I am unlike you. Look again. I am the dark side of the glass, proud to own my power for good or for ill.
My sorcery, unlike your malcontent prayers, cannot be undone. I relish my powers to shift my shape without boundaries, to move freely between the holy trinity of women. No church would ever make me give up my body in all its lustful glory to a fleshless lord. For what purpose? To be tamed, to live in servitude, to be robbed of my mystery?
