Beautiful Chaos (Wildlings #3)

Before We Begin

First, thanks to the readers who’ve stuck with me through this unhinged series, which is full of in-jokes and callbacks from twenty books ago. I see you. I hope I’ve made you proud.

As for this story: Every time I wrote about Silas, I thought of Edison. That’s a problem if you’ve read the Wimberley Chronicles because it means I accidentally spilled sci-fi and fantasy into what was supposed to be a contemporary series. Oops. But that’s also why I love him.

Silas has never fit neatly into anyone’s categories. He wasn’t an easy kid to love. It took a village of self-sacrificing adults to get him here—and he knows it. He wants so badly to be worthy of them.

I also love Oakley’s steady stubbornness and the way that plays into both his love for Silas and their kinky bedroom dynamics. As you can imagine, Sy needs strong guidance, and Oak is more than happy to volunteer for the job.

That said, Oakley’s fathers’ fear and distrust of Silas is earned. That was a hard hill to climb because we love Silas so much, it hurts to see him not be accepted. The word psycho gets thrown around a lot in this book. Sometimes affectionately, sometimes not.

Also, Oakley is the psychological support staff at Wimberley. His relationship with Silas? Super unethical. That this is treated as a punchline tells you everything you need to know about Wimberley.*

Content warning: Graphic violence (the bad guys deserve it), murder as foreplay, foreplay as prelude to murder, and—how to put this? Murdery levels of cuteness aggression. Also: PTSD flashbacks, mentions of human trafficking, animal cruelty, and unethical genetic manipulation.

*This kind of punchline works in fiction. It should never happen in real life.