When Sadie's brother, Shane, dies of a opioid overdose, Sadie's family is both confused and suspicious. Shane would never have committed suicide, which is what the police think, and Shane's wife is acting oddly. So Sadie starts looking around. Haley is a part of the Pettit family, a long line of petty criminals and drug addicts. She's so eager to leave the small town of Blackwater, Kansas, where everyone knows exactly who her family is and her mother has drifted back into addiction. She just needs to save enough money to leave. She's cleaning the house of the local bigwig and spending time with his son, who is directionless and eager to spend time with her.

The setting is the draw of this novel, a small rural community where the only available jobs are manual and low-paying, where the opioid epidemic rages and anyone who has the means leaves. And the plot is well developed, with alternating chapters switching between Sadie and Haley. The Haley chapters take place several months earlier and Laura McHugh does a fine job of raising the levels of tension equally in each of the timelines. I was set to rate this book very highly, but there's an abrupt end where the mystery is wrapped up in an odd sort of outline, all the bad guys confessing and all the good guys, who had previously been struggling with some serious issues, all received happy endings. I would have much preferred a longer book, better pacing and and an ending in keeping with the tone of the rest of the novel.

In “The Wolf Wants In,” two storylines take center stage. One features an 18-year-old girl desperate to get out of town. A second features a sister desperate to learn the truth about her brother’s death. I am a big fan of the author’s first novel and found this one to be just as good as the first. Let’s not talk about the second. This novel will be released on 08/06/2019. Many thanks to @netgalley and @penguinrandomhouse for the ARC.

4-5 stars. I wasn’t sure I would enjoy this book, but I ended up finding it very riveting and hard to put down. The author did an amazing job at making sure the characters were real and deep, and developed in a way you needed to know their stories. Loved the multiple points of view. Very sad at times, but also chilling.
Will be recommending to the members of Chapter Chatter Pub!

Such a compelling and bittersweet story. Sadie Keller and Henley Pettit live in different worlds in opioid stricken Kansas. But the one thing they have in common is Sadie’s brother Shane, who was found dead in his home.
Beautiful storytelling, weaving different characters and points of view to create a bigger picture.

I love these kinds of small town, creeping mysteries. Full of deep character portraits, where everyone knows everyone's business, but no ones talking. The Wolf Wants In is intricate and winding & will leave you guessing how everything and everyone is connected.

From the perspectives of Sadie, a woman who's lost her brother to questionable circumstances, and Henley, a recent high school grad struggling to reconcile her family with her own desires, both women feel the invisible forces in their rural community constantly tugging at them.

Laura McHugh expertly builds suspense and keeps you wondering just how deep some roots run. Plus, I love when family members 'just won't let it go'. This was a relatively quick read that's definitely worth the effort!

The Wolf Wants In is a compelling novel about family, loyalty, loss and love. Told from two perspectives - Sadie and Henley - and over the course of several months, the story is incredibly well layered. McHugh creates well developed characters and a plot with multiple reveals and a satisfying conclusion. Worth the read!

Laura McHugh's wonderful literary thriller should be a first buy for all adult fiction collections, as it will please fans of the genre as well as readers looking for gritty family stories.

Atmospheric, emotional, and compelling, I found The Wolf Wants In to be a story full of heartbreak and hope. Laura McHugh has woven together a narrative that is equal parts suspenseful mystery and moving study of poverty and the effects it has on those drowning in its grasp. Highly recommended for readers who love gritty literature with unique characters.

Another outstanding work of suspense from Laura McHugh. In a community ravaged by the opioid epidemic, things are not as they seem when a man suddenly dies and, in a separate instance, a little girl goes missing. As the man’s family seeks answers, they uncover shocking circumstances.

I love McHigh’s writing and found this to be unputdownable and original. Excellent character development and taut suspense throughout.

Many thanks to Netgalley, Spiegel and Grau and Laura McHugh for my complimentary e-copy ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

The Keller family--the mother, a survivor of domestic abuse, and two sisters, Sadie and Becca--cannot believe their brother, Shane, died of a heart attack at only thirty-six. Besides a bad back from a lifetime of hard labor, Shane never exhibited any health problems. Sadie also thought Shane’s widow. Crystle, showed too little grief, grandstanding at the funeral while disposing of all of Shane’s possessions only days later. But Detective Lacey Kendrick of small Blackwater, Kansas, already disinclined to investigate a closed case, became overwhelmed when bones were found in the wood that might belong to Macey Calhoun, a child who went missing several months earlier, presumed kidnapped by her father.

Without police support, Sadie pursued her inquiry, finding out that Shane had a life he never shared with his family, one that might provide unwelcome answers. At the same time, Sadie reached out to Macey’s mother, Hannah, who had been an acquaintance when both of their daughters attended the same preschool years earlier.

Henley Pettit’s story begins four months before Shane’s death. Just graduated from high school, her paramount goal is leaving Blackwater. Henley, Crystle’s cousin, has long been oppressed by her family’s criminal legacy. With her last name and prominent Pettit features, everyone in town associates her with her uncle’s drug dealing. As Henley tries to escape, her ties to her family--to her uncles and their illegal activities, to her mother and her drug addiction, and to Jason Sullivan, scion of the wealthiest family in town--prevent her from making the break she is desperate for.

Sadie, unable to let go of her quest for truth, and Henley, unable to leave, both find themselves in life-threatening situations that they can survive by their wits and courage alone.

The Wolf Wants In offers an engrossing and well-written saga of the dark side of a small midwestern town, shows the impact of the opioid crisis on one community, and rolls back the facade of a wealthy family to show the disfunction underneath. Having two timelines heightened the tension which reached a crescendo as they converged, while the ending was satisfying.
I found the characters interesting for the most part, particularly Henley, who had to take over adult duties since her mother was incapable, but still had an underlying naivete that at times endangered her. A social worker, Sadie was compassionate and determined, but she sometimes made very poor decisions, such as going to a bar to talk to Hannah, an addict, about a very important development in her daughter’s case. Shane, though only appearing in flashbacks in Sadie’s timeline, was a sympathetic character who possibly engaged in dastardly deeds--I would have been happy to have seen more of him in the novel. Other characters were less developed, such as Sadie’s grieving mother, or more stereotypical, such as Henley’s big, tough, drug-dealing uncles.

Interestingly, the wolf is also a metaphor in McHugh’s previous book, The Weight of Blood. In that book, the wolf represented an external danger. In this novel, the wolf is already inside the gates, an internal threat that is even harder to detect.

Fans of literary thrillers will definitely want to put The Wolf Wants In on their to-read list. At times tragic, at times eye-opening, it’s a gripping mystery that offers more insight than a standard procedural.

With one woman’s quest to find out what really happened to her brother, and another who’s desperate to leave the small, drug-fueled town, in THE WOLF WANTS IN, Laura McHugh expertly paints a stark and haunting picture, filled with tragedy and tenderness. Poignant, atmospheric and utterly captivating, this novel, and its characters, will stay with me for a long time.

Well-written story with two main story lines that converge toward the end of the book. As the description mentions, it incorporates the opiate addiction crisis with characters that are effected in one way and another by it. However, it's used as the backdrop of the mystery, not the main point of the book. Explores how family members can become distant and unknown, even to each other.

This story was so good--intriguing from page one it drew me in--this is not for the faint of heart, a glimpse into real lives, struggling lower class poverty stricken people who work hard to earn their money, drug users and dealers, and those few who reign at the top of small town America and sadly run the show for the underdogs . Told from two different points of view, Sadie in the present and Harlan's in the recent past just a few months back. Sadie is mourning the loss of her 30-something yo brother Shane whose wife claimed he died of a heart attack that occurred one night before she got home and she just found him that way. Sadie does not believe Chrystle and wants an investigation. She is still dealing with her recent divorce, along with her sister Becca who has a family, are both mourning while trying to live their lives in the small town they live in in Kansas. Harlan is Crystle's cousin who somehow got mixed up in the entire story involving drugs and cover-up, lying and pure evil--of Shane's death that is revealed at the end. The story is well-written, brutally honest and the characters so real in this day and age, fabulous story. I could not put this one down. Will def be looking for more from this amazing author! Thanks to NG for the ARC!!!!

Unputdownable! Excellent story from start to finish! Looking forward to reading more by this author!

Laura McHugh hit it out of the park yet again. The Wolf Wants In is another page turner that I could not put down. McHugh perfectly describes small town life. Growing up in a small midwestern town, I was able to picture the setting as well as the characters - especially the family that each town has that everyone knows just by looking at them. Another gripping suspense that will sure be a hit!

McHugh doesn’t mince around here: there’s addiction and poverty, and all the things that poverty does to support addiction. As with her debut The Weight of Blood, I loved the gritty, realistic feeling of this story as two women—one who wants to leave and the other who feels drawn to stay—navigate the dark heart of this book’s mystery.

Highly recommend.

**
My thanks to the publisher, the author and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book.

A crushing narrative highlighting the opioid crisis in small town America. Laura McHugh gives outstanding perspective through her characters in supporting a plot dynamic surrounding murder, addiction, and betrayal. The story line is raw, compelling, and distinctly written to evoke a rollercoaster of emotions. What starts out to be a murder investigation soon becomes the beacon of despondence for a small town in the midst of something much larger. Wonderful read. 5 stars

Thank you to #NetGalley for this ARC of #TheWolfWantsIn

A gripping novel a novel that brings the opioid crisis alive through these characters.So well written ba literary thriller a book that drew me in kept me turning the pages an author to follow,#netgalley#randomhouse.

Quite depressing at times, but fairly compelling. McHugh's story weaves together two alternating female perspectives and is often centered on family history and secrets. This book never fully became a page-turner that kept me on the edge of my seat, but I was invested in these women's tales and curious to discover what intriguing corners the story explored. While McHugh has not become the exciting writer that I assumed she was aiming to be, she has carved out a nice little niche for herself within the bleak, backwoods thriller genre.

I really enjoyed this book and read it on one sitting. It is more a literary mystery as there is not much of a mystery going on. It is told from the perspectives of two different women and the author alternates chapters and makes it clear who is speaking. It also gives a good look at a community struggling with the opioid epidemic. I am going to seek out this authors prior books after reading this one.

I was given a free copy on NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review.