It's the summer of 2003, and twenty-two-year-old Michael Andrews has finally escaped his small Ontario mining town for the city of his Spider-Man daydreams. But the wolf attack on a lonely highway changes everything. Now he's navigating Manhattan with powerfully sharp senses well beyond normal human limits, a transformation he can't control, and a beautiful woman he's terrified to let close.
By day, Michael shelves books in a Greenwich Village shop, using his uncanny ability to read emotions to connect with customers. Those same abilities have given this previously undateable book nerd an unexpected confidence—enough to win the attention of Rachel, an aspiring actress whose kindness draws him in.
But when the full moon rises, he loses himself to his alter-ego: a six-foot grey wolf. Haunted by guilt and longing for connection, Michael must decide whether his curse will define him—or if he can transform it into something more.
Some curses can't be outrun. The only question is what you do when they catch up.
[This origin story of the Canadian Werewolf series is told through "current day" 2017 bookends of a prologue and epilogue timeline that follow immediately after Only Monsters in the Building]
Like Michael Andrews, Mark Leslie considers himself a beta human. However, unlike his fictional character, Leslie doesn’t have an alpha-wolf persona, despite hair growing on his aging body in all the wrong places.
Mark lives in Southern Ontario and can most likely be found behind the keyboard, with his nose stuck in a book, enjoying and tracking craft beer, sharing musical earworms and dad jokes, and wandering, awestruck, through bookstores and libraries.
You can learn more about him at www.markleslie.ca.