What Should Be Wild: A Novel

“Delightful and darkly magical. . . . [A] beautiful modern myth, a coming-of-age story for a girl with a worrisome power over life and death. I loved it.” —Audrey Niffenegger, New York Times–bestselling author of The Time Traveler’s Wife and Her Fearful Symmetry

Cursed. Maisie Cothay has never known the feel of human flesh: born with the power to kill or resurrect at her slightest touch, she has spent her childhood sequestered in her family’s manor at the edge of a mysterious forest. Maisie’s father, an anthropologist who sees her as more experiment than daughter, has warned Maisie not to venture into the wood. Locals talk of men disappearing within, emerging with addled minds and strange stories. What he does not tell Maisie is that for over a millennium her female ancestors have also vanished into the wood, never to emerge—for she is descended from a long line of cursed women.

But one day Maisie’s father disappears, and Maisie must venture beyond the walls of her carefully constructed life to find him. Away from her home and the wood for the very first time, she encounters a strange world filled with wonder and deception. Yet the farther she strays, the more the wood calls her home. For only there can Maisie finally reckon with her power and come to understand the wildest parts of herself.

“An intricately contrived feminist fantasy [that] explores the urges of the body, the nature of desire and the power of the spirit.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“A surreally feministic tale. . . . Enchanting, menacing and darkly humorous, it explores women’s power and powerlessness throughout the ages.” —Family Circle

“A modern fairy tale . . . Fine’s story is a barely restrained, careful musing on female desire, loneliness and hereditary inheritances.” —Washington Post

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