Just A Regular Boy is a novel by award-winning best-selling American author, Catherine Ryan Hyde. At five years old, Remy Blake is plucked from the only home he has known by his widowed father, a survivalist, to live in a primitive isolated cabin in the Idaho woods. Roy Blake rejects his fatherhood role: he and Remy are equal partners preparing for the coming conflagration. He firmly believes society is on the brink of collapse, and the wilderness is the only place to survive it.

Some three years on, Roy dies, and Remy is left by himself in the woods. He makes a few unsuccessful attempts to leave, but three years alone with his father have infected him with Roy’s paranoia, and another six months with no voice of reason to contradict Roy’s convictions make Remy fearful of authority figures and wary of returning to civilisation. When the supplies run out, he has little choice, which is why a boy of eight sets out to walk to Canada.

Anne Sebastian and her husband Chris have fostered many children, even adopted two of them. Perhaps something in Anne’s own upbringing makes her want to provide a safe home for children who desperately need it. Quite what draws her to the most difficult and damaged souls isn’t clear, but the compulsion does put a strain on their marriage.

They are still mentally recovering from handing back their last foster when she hears, by chance, of a feral boy stealing food from a convenience store, evading authorities, and apparently living in the woods in the north of the state. She knows she has to help him. Circumstances put him in hospital, all those gowned and masked people a terrifying experience for a boy programmed by Roy Blake.

With one penetrating look and her calm manner, Anne connects and, despite all the negative reactions, her only impulse is to say “yes”, she will foster this boy. But even knowing his trauma will emerge, she can’t predict quite what she las let herself in for. Luckily, it turns out she has an understanding and tolerant family, and a therapist full of sound advice to back her up.

Remy enters the reader’s heart on page one and stays there. Ryan Hyde really knows people and, as always, many of her characters restore the reader’s faith in humankind. She gives them plenty of wise words and insightful observations. There are some jaw-dropping moments, some that put a lump in the throat or bring a tear to the eye, but ultimately, the support and love that many of the characters give Remy make this a truly uplifting tale. Utterly captivating.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing.