Devil Whisperer

About the Book

In the remote Esk Valley of Northern Tasmania, a lost feral child finds shelter and comfort with an old farmer and a young french tourist and slowly begins to find himself. Will is turning seven, and despite his parentless, haphazard beginnings, he has been welcomed with affection and nurtured by Hoppy and Ariette. They have been amazed to discover that Will has an affinity with animals, an ability to communicate with them which is his one prodigeous gift. As they encourage him, others begin to recognise what he can do but not everyone is equally impressed. Though he becomes something of a celebrity in his small community, even featured on television, others resent him. He is attacked and ends up in hospital in a bed beside Hoppy, now his foster parent, who has suffered a heart attack in the middle of the assault. The television program devoted to Will's story, « Devil Whisperer », portays him as a shy little boy, but a skilled animal communicator, especially with the Tasmanian Devils, themselves a threatened species. However when that program goes to air, his birth mother, who carelessly abandoned him years before, wants to see him. Many wounds are opened when she reappears, bringing chaos and nothing in his newly found refuge can be the same. And somehow in the midst of all the exposure and the pitfalls of small fame, the trials and assaults on a sensitive and vulnerable child, a deep love is nurtured. It is this love that will endure.

About the Author

Alastair Sharp is an Australian writer, who has lived since 2004 in Bordeaux France. His novels, while drawing constantly on his Australian roots, nevertheless ripples out to the wider world he has experienced in his travels. His primary interest is in exploring the potential that powers the human spirit, where what seems ordinary becomes dynamic and where the forces of grace and effort draw out the best in us.