Werewolves: What if they really exist?

I feel a bit odd discussing this on Easter weekend, but I can't seem to help myself. A really strange thing happened the other day. Not holy-crackers-I-was-abducted-by-aliens! strange, but holy cow, I met a living, breathing person, out of the blue, who had read my book CRY WOLF. Turns out she was a friend of an acquaintance who’d given it a try on that person's recommendation, but still. More strange and amazing was that she enjoyed it so much she wanted to talk about it. Specifically, she wanted to talk about werewolves and…what if they really do exist?

This was a bit of a novelty for me. I’ve never talked to a person I don’t really know face-to-face about my book (friends and family don’t count), and truth is, I’ve been so engrossed in the books I’ve written since, that I forgot about how much I love that story and its subject material. Usually when people discuss werewolves in fiction, conversation veers toward Jacob Black or hunky, tortured romance heroes. Honestly, I love those tropes, too, but shouldn’t werewolves be scarier than that? says the girl who grew up being terrified by Stephen King's Silver Bullet.

So few are aware that the story that inspired mine is a real urban legend. I’m such a weirdo that I watch all kinds of paranormal-based shows and documentaries, and I forget that not everyone knows about the Beast of Bray Road, even though it’s been featured on Animal Planet, the History Channel, and Coast to Coast AM, and a really lame, bad B-movie called The Beast of Bray Road is on Netflix, although I wouldn’t recommend it because it’s terrible. TERRIBLE I tell you.

The Beast of Bray Road — the alleged creature, not the movie — is classified with the likes of Bigfoot and The Loch Ness Monster because, pshaw, werewolves couldn’t possibly exist in modern America! Hmmm. I’m not so sure. There have been hundreds of witnesses who have reported seeing a large hairy animal that stands upright on two feet resembling a wolf in and around Elkhorn, Wisconsin. A lot of the sightings have been quite horrifying if you care to read them. Seriously, I would have totally screamed and run the other way as soon as humanly possible — if I didn’t faint first. Even stranger is that more recent sightings have given the creature supernatural abilities — such as suddenly appearing and disappearing and even morphing shape.

Personally, I’m fairly convinced there is something out there and that The Beast of Bray Road isn’t a figment out of the witnesses’ imaginations. Is it a werewolf? Well, considering no one actually really knows what a werewolf is or has ever caught one to my knowledge, then sure. Why not? When you factor in other cases, other sightings from around the world, it makes you think.

I enjoyed talking to this reader and revisiting that topic, and I immediately went to Amazon when I got home to see what new werewolf books are available. If you have any recommendations, please post them below. I also Googled "werewolves" and was giddy to come across this trailer for Netflix original series “Hemlock Grove,” which looks awesome, doesn't it? I totally want to read the book on which it's based now. It debuts April 19 on Netflix in case you’re interested. And if you love werewolves in fiction as much as I do, you know, my book is still available....

What about you? Do you believe werewolves could exist?