Review: The Hounding

4/5 stars

The Hounding, by Xenobe Purvis (2025)

In the small English village of Little Nettlebed in the eighteenth century, everyone loves to hate the Mansfield sisters, who range in age from about six to seventeen. Having lost both of their parents, and, more recently, their grandmother too, they live with their aging grandfather, who is losing his sight.

The sisters are Anne - the eldest, Elizabeth - the pretty one, Hester - the tomboy, Grace - the quiet one, and Mary - the youngest. They keep to themselves, and always travel as a unit. Their solitude and perceived aloof attitude doesn't sit well with the other villagers. After all, girls are meant to smile at you... If they don't smile at you, they must be up to no good, right? Rumors about the sisters have always bent towards the uncanny, but as a devastatingly heavy heat sets in, tempers and temperatures alike start to rise. The river is drying up, and Pete, the ferryman, is losing business, and never liked those girls anyway, so maybe they're responsible... When he claims to see the sisters transform into dogs, the allegations spread fear and hatred across the town.

The Hounding reminded me a great deal of Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle; A dark and gloomy town where everyone is a little odd, with ostracized teenage girls living apart from the rest of the villagers, and suspected of evil-doings.

The story is told from the perspective of five different villagers - the grandfather, two young men who work on the Mansfield property, the pub owner's wife, and the aforementioned ferryman. That is to say, the story is told by everyone but the sisters themselves, so we never really know - are they "just" young women shunned for being different, or do they really morph into girl-like dogs / dog-like girls? Are the villagers right to fear for their lives and the lives of their livestock? Or has gossip so warped their minds that they'll believe anything they're told? Is this magical realism or a commentary on the patriarchy?? (or both!)

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UP NEXT: A Guardian & a Thief, by Megha Majumdar