240 pages, Hardcover
Expected publication August 5, 2025
The Hounding by Xenobe Purvis is the perfect example of what happens when young girls don't act within societal norms and shows the repercussions of outdated beliefs still followed by those surrounding them.
Five sisters. One grandfather. That's what makes up the Mansfields and so far they've been happy with their lives in Little Nettlebed. The rest of the village has long frowned upon them, jealous of their station and belongings. They think the sisters are aloof and their blind grandfather nothing but a fool who lets them run around unsupervised. Because aren't young women supposed to be proper and kept locked inside the house with their domestic duties? Well, the Mansfield sisters want none of that, much to the dismay of Little Nettlebed, especially the ferryman Pete. He's long loathed the young women and once he sees something strange happening to them, he makes it his mission to take them down, because demons are dangerous, even if they are in the shape of a dog.
This is such a phenomenal book. I loved the setting and the paranoid villagers who seem unable to let go of the notion of witchcraft. Even though this book is set in the 18th century, it still is relevant today. There will always be a bias on how girls are supposed to act, while boys get to run unleashed. Xenobe's prose is amazing and it transported me straight into Little Nettlebed and let me run alongside the sisters, while the rest of the village succumbed to mass hysteria.
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