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Joe lives with his mother in Helmouth, a forgotten village crumbling on the edge of the suburbs. His days are spent trying to evade the demands of school and the taunts of the local bullies. Joe’s friend, Stanny, insists that Joe must toughen up, become a survivor – and he is adamant that a weekend in the wilderness with Stanny and his Uncle Joff will do the trick.
Into Joe’s unhappy world comes Hackenschmidt’s Circus, and with it the strangely familiar Corinna. She tells Joe, ‘In the circus there is a secret heart ‘ – a place of contained wildness where the barriers between the human and animal world are fluid. And indeed, Joe’s dreams are already stalked by a tiger, so real that his skin and its pelt begin to feel as one…
‘As readers will expect from David Almond, there’s a sense of inhabiting a strange, vivid world that exists alongside the familiar, and an evocation of wonder in everyday things as well as in the extraordinary. A powerful addition to his highly distinctive works.’ TES
‘This gripping book will enrich your soul and fire your imagination.‘ Daily Telegraph
‘His best book yet … As we have come to expect of Almond’s writing, the book has a dreamlike resonance. It is a story about love, persecution, freedom and the conflict between man and beast, perceived here as a battle between machismo and a female animalism.’ Literary Review
