The Hounding - Hardcover

by Xenobe Purvis (Author)

National Bestseller - A New York Times Book Review Book Club Pick - A New York Times Notable Book - Indies Choice Awards Finalist - Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, TIME and Kirkus Reviews - The Crucible meets The Virgin Suicides in this haunting debut about five sisters in a small village in eighteenth-century England whose neighbors are convinced they're turning into dogs.

ONE OF PEOPLE'S, APPLE BOOKS', AND AMAZON'S BEST BOOKS OF AUGUST 2025

"A wildly inventive riff on the Gothic form, with enough suspense and mounting dread to rival Shirley Jackson's 'The Lottery.'"
--The New York Times

Even before the rumors about the Mansfield girls begin, Little Nettlebed is a village steeped in the uncanny, from strange creatures that wash up on the riverbank to portentous ravens gathering on the roofs of people about to die. But when the villagers start to hear barking, and one claims to see the Mansfield sisters transform before his very eyes, the allegations spark fascination and fear like nothing has before.

The truth is that though the inhabitants of Little Nettlebed have never much liked the Mansfield girls--a little odd, think some; a little high on themselves, perhaps--they've always had plenty to say about them. As the rotating perspectives of five villagers quickly make clear, now is no exception. Even if local belief in witchcraft is waning, an aversion to difference is as widespread as ever, and these conflicting narratives all point to the same ultimate conclusion: Something isn't right in Little Nettlebed, and the sisters will be the ones to pay for it.

A richly atmospheric parable of the pleasures and perils of female defiance, The Hounding considers whether in any age it might be safer to be a dog than an unusual young girl.

Author Biography

Xenobe Purvis was born in Tokyo in 1990. She studied English Literature at the University of Oxford, has an MA in creative writing from Royal Holloway, and was part of the London Library's Emerging Writers Programme. She is a writer and literary researcher, with essays published in the Times Literary Supplement, the London Magazine, and elsewhere.