Beast Becomes Her

A traumatized teen learns to harness her ire in this empowering fantasy from Seitz (Inheritance of Scars). Seventeen-year-old Edith and her younger sister have been in foster care ever since Edith, at age seven a decade prior, witnessed her parents’ murder-suicide. Fearful of taking after her abusive father, Edith endeavors to suppress angry emotions, but when a flirtatious jock gets aggressive, Edith slaps him and leaves claw marks. Following the incident, the sisters’ longtime caseworker, Helga, reveals that they’re descended from berserkir, Viking warriors whose wrath facilitated their transformation into animals. To save Edith from assault charges and keep the girls together, Helga brings them to Skallagrim, ostensibly a school for troubled youth, but actually an Icelandic academy for Old Norse magic, or seiðr. Regrettably, on Edith’s second night, handsome fellow student Amund—born to hunt berserkir run amok—encounters her moments after she finds a disemboweled young witch. Edith maintains her innocence, but when the body count rises, she knows she must find the real killer to avoid expulsion—or worse. Seitz delivers a rollicking blend of mystery, romance, and horror-tinged fantasy while sensitively exploring weighty topics such as toxic masculinity, female rage, and family violence. The authentic-feeling characters are intersectionally diverse. Ages 14–up. Agent: Laura Crockett, Triada US. (Mar.)