The Hounding
The season of strangeness has begun . . .
Many stories are told about the five Mansfield sisters. They are haughty, thinking themselves better than their neighbours in the picturesque village of Little Nettlebed. They have taken the death of their grandmother hard. They are liars, troublemakers, untamed and dangerous... Accounts of their behaviour differ, but the villagers all agree that the girls are odd.
One long summer, a heatwave descends. Bloated sea creatures wash up along the parched riverbed, animals grow frenzied, ravens gather on the roofs of those about to die. As the stifling heat grips the village, so does a strange rumour: the Mansfield sisters have been seen transforming into a pack of dogs.
With the witch trials only a recent memory, hysteria sets in. Slowly but surely, the villagers become convinced that something strange is taking root in Little Nettlebed. And when a bark finally leads to a bite, the sisters will be the ones to pay for it.
Visceral and richly atmospheric, The Hounding plunges its reader into 18th century Oxfordshire, where the power of a man’s word is absolute, and it is safer to be a wild animal than an unconventional young woman.
Reviews
Haunting and melancholy and bittersweet and just the most beautiful evocative prose. For fans of Jeffrey Eugenides, Julia Armfield and Sophie Mackintosh.
Haunting and beguiling, this fever dream of a novel draws you in and colours your mind all shades of doubt and suspicion.
THE HOUNDING is a sweaty fever-dream of a novel. The writing is gorgeous: it bristles with rage and crackles with energy. Unsettling, vivid and irresistibly readable. I can't wait to see what Xenobe Purvis writes next.
A novel of rare grace and skill, exquisitely wrought and simmering with feral violence.
A haunting, dark, visceral story...chilling.
THE HOUNDING is a debut novel bound to be a cult classic. It’s a tale set centuries ago that throbs with a bloody, living heart. It’s a jewel dug from the depths of Xenobe Purvis’s imagination. It’s exquisite.
Purvis makes a clever but careful case for combining the Gothic with the paranormal.
This is an extraordinary debut, clever, strange and beautifully written.
A taut, tense tale, impeccably told.
Enjoyably vivid… there’s something tellingly 21st century in this folkloric tale as it takes on the patriarchy and explores female rage with purpose and guile.
A visceral, dark book that will bite you.
An irresistible page-turner… THE HOUNDING is the perfect holiday book.
Purvis’ suspenseful and sure-footed debut breathes vivid life into its arresting concept.
Purvis’s debut is a wildly inventive riff on the Gothic form, with enough suspense and mounting dread to rival Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery.'
(Purvis) is excellent at evoking the fear of the unknown and the lure of the mob.
(Purvis's) story transcends its antecedents, evolving into something more ambiguous and unexpected.
Purvis writes with a kind of lush violence that makes the sisters’ experiences feel immediate and fresh.
“The Crucible” collides with “The Virgin Suicides” in this chilling, lyrical debut.
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