Hear Her Howl

Following her arrival at an all-girls Catholic boarding school, a queer teen discovers a hidden ability to transform into a wolf in this alluring fantasy from DeRose (For Girls Who Walk Through Fire). After 16-year-old Rue Holloway is caught kissing a girl, her mother sends her to Sacred Heart in rural New Hampshire. Rue instantly falls for her troublemaker classmate Charlotte Savage, who takes the blame for Rue’s production of a rebellious zine questioning the school’s dress code, reasoning that Charlotte’s wealthy senator father’s large donations to the school cushion her from severe consequences. When students begin hearing howling from the off-limits woods surrounding the school, Charlotte settles Rue’s anxiety with a secret: all women who hear “the call” can change into wolves. Now capable of transforming, Rue—accompanied by Charlotte and others—frolics through the woods as a wolf. But soon the school ramps up its efforts to hunt them down, sowing panic among the shifters; simultaneously, Rue’s own family strain sets the stage for a tense climax that emphasizes the novel’s focus on control vs. freedom. The 1990s-leaning setting lacks detail and leads to a somewhat unmoored narrative. DeRose’s fresh reframing of familiar werewolf mythology alongside artfully wrought characters buttresses charged messaging about religious dominion and patriarchal attitudes. Rue and Charlotte read as white. Ages 14–up. Agent: Kathy Green, Kathryn Green Literary. (Nov.)