'In a city ravaged by crime and corruption, 13-year-old orphan Caw’s only friends are the murder of crows he has lived with since his parents flung him from their house aged only five. Caw lives in a treehouse in an abandoned city park, surviving on scraps of food and only communicating with his three crows. But a jailbreak at the prison forces him into contact with other humans – particularly a girl called Lydia, who is attacked by the escaped prisoners and is saved by Caw.
'Caw realises that these escaped prisoners have more in common with him than he’d like… they too are FERALS – humans able to communicate with and control an animal species. And they want to bring their evil Feral master, The Spinning Man, back from the Land of the Dead. Only by joining forces with other good Ferals hiding throughout the city can Caw stand a chance of defeating them.'
Ferals is a young adult fantasy series that I completely missed when it first came out, but I am very glad that I have since discovered. Set in a world where certain humans, Ferals, have the ability to communicate with and control animals, we enter a dark world of crime, mystery, and the supernatural.
The main character, Caw, is a young man living on the streets of Blackstone City, a place that feels very similar to the dark and depressing surroundings of Gotham City, or New York as depicted in gritty 70's and 80's movies. Caw has been alone for eight years, living with the crows. Able to understand them and work alongside them, he is always accompanied by his three companions, Glum, Screech, and the white crow Milky.
When Caw witnesses a prison break his world turns upside down. He becomes drawn into a secret world that he had no idea existed, one that not only holds the secrets to his past, but threatens the handful of friends he makes along the way.
The world of Ferals is surprisingly well crafted, and we make the same journey as Caw as he slowly learns more about not only his powers, but the history of the Ferals and of Blackstone City. He, and the reader, don't get told everything up front, nor do we get the answer to every question, but we learn enough to not only understand how the rules of this universe work, but also the danger that our heroes face. Despite not meeting the main villain until the final handful of pages, we learn so much about him, and what he did in the past, that once we do we have a good handle on how much of a threat he is, and what it means for this world.
It's not just the world of Ferals that's well crafted, however, the characters are also brilliantly written. We learn a lot about Caw over the course of the book, and get a really good sense of the kind of person he is, but even the smaller characters are incredibly well realised. The other Ferals in the book, some of which fought against the evil forces in the past, each have their own distinct personalities and sense of style, even those that we only get to see for a handful of pages.
Jacob Grey has managed to craft every aspect of the book so well that feels like a living breathing world, full of characters that have deep and rich backstories and their own motivations, no matter how little we see of them. As the first part of a trilogy the book does an amazing job at establishing the world and the players, and left me hungry not only to see where the story goes, but wanting to find out more about the history, the Ferals, and to meet more exciting characters.
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