ABOUT THE BOOK
Annie Engel is seemingly content to be a legal secretary in a big mega-corporation. She's the kind of girl who "understands" when her boss chews her out for his own errors or the man she put through law school leaves her for another young lawyer. A soft touch for con artists, needy neighbours and her own friends, and a vegetarian who wouldn't hurt a fly, she doesn't even like to hurt people's feelings. So she is understandably horrified when she discovers she's been running loose during full moons ripping out the throats of wealthy men and having bestial sex with another wild werewolf. When Dr. Marco Potenza promises her a chance of a near-normal life through talk, drug and confinement therapy, this appeals to Annie. But the allure of the wild male werewolf is strong, and the city is teeming with human predators who are Annie's natural prey.
Can she resist her natural urge to kill? Can two wild werewolves find love while the police, the media, her psychiatrist and maverick hunters are closing in?
'Sparkle Hayter is a wonderful writer' - Marian Keyes
'The funniest thing to come out of Canada since the moose' - Red
'Hayter is a queen of offbeat modern storytelling' - Carson Howat, The Scotsman [read the full review]
If you haven't heard of Canadian writer Hayter by now, be sure to buy this latest, sharply written creation. Then buy up her back catalogue. Mixing satirical onslaughts on Manhattan archetypes with stunningly simple, yet easily compelling, tales, Hayter is a queen of offbeat modern storytelling. Here she splices the dark comedy, horror (though, surprisingly, not much gore) and ill-fated romance of An American Werewolf In London with the moral supernatural quandaries of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel in a story of good werewolves hunting down the evil of the city and trying to escape the clutches of assorted stalkers, the media, police and an inbred family of werewolf hunters. Writing with fangs.
'whenever you get to it, you'll be howling at the moon' - Now Toronto [read the full review]
'first and foremost [Hayter]'s a novelist, smart and talented.' - Charles de Lint, Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine [read the full review]
Readers unfamiliar with Hayter's cheerfully quirky voice from her Robin Hudson mysteries might still get a clue as to what's in store for them by the title of her new novel, a cheeky play on that of the William Burroughs classic. But instead of junkies, Hayter writes about another New York City minority, werewolves. Or, as some of them like to refer to themselves, people with Lycanthropic Metamorphic Disorder (LMD).
To be honest, while Hayter does spend a fair amount of time with her werewolves, in both human and wolf shape, and posits a number of considered speculations on their genetic make-up and history, I'd say she's more interested in writing a character-driven novel that just happens to also have some werewolves in it.
She spends as much, if not more, time delving into the psyches of Sam Deverell, a good-hearted if somewhat dim reporter at a local TV network, and his co-workers. Deverell is going through a bad patch with his marriage. So is the city's mayor, as well as the psychiatrist/werewolf Marcho Potenza, who runs a clinic for werewolves. Come to think of it, relationships on the edge of break-up, or those that have already disintegrated, touch pretty much all the characters in this book, from Annie Engel, the nicest girl in the city who, as the book opens, learns that she's a werewolf, to Jim Valiente, Potenza's rival, a renegade werewolf who was presumed dead.
But none of this is delivered with teariness and angst. Hayter's trademark wiseacre voice is in full-throttle here as she pokes fun at social climbers, gossip columnists, news agencies, multi-national conglomerates, and anything else that happens to get in her way.
What's surprising, and also so satisfying, is that all of this is icing on a great, fast-paced plot with characters we can really care about. Hayter has been, in her time, a news reporter, a TV producer, and a stand- up comedienne, but what she proves with Naked Brunch, as she has with her mystery series before it, is that first and foremost she's a novelist, smart and talented.
