Many thanks to the publisher and netgalley for the e-arc.

I found The Hounding to be unique and one of a kind. I found myself questioning the historical and modern day safety of girls and women. Light was shed in a way to highlight how rumors can spread life wildfire and expectations can be either met, defied, or altered to meet the needs of those around them. I think that most would find this book enjoyable and would recommend it to anyone regardless if they find the title, cover, or blurb interesting in any way.

This book was a fun, quick read. I enjoyed the different POVs presented through the different villager characters. The writing was beautiful.

I'm not sure how I feel about this one but it definitely stays with you. The description and the tagline: The Virgin Suicides meets the Crucible definitely intrigued me. However, like both those stories the book focused mainly on the (male) side characters and their feelings and suspicions toward these strange girls.

The Hounding is set during an unseasonably hot summer in a small English village surrounded by water and requires a boatman to traverse from one side to the other. The novel is written in third person but focuses on a few different characters. Pete the boatman who spends most of his time at the public house and sleeping outside, Temperance the wife of the owner of the public house who has a strong aversion to alcohol, and the two young men who come work for the Mansfield family and help with the summer harvest.

The novel begins with a bad encounter between Pete and the Mansfield sisters and things just get worse from there. It's pretty predictable what happens next but Purvis keeps the tension high and there's a sense of foreboding throughout the book. I found the ending interesting and a little unexpected but altogether not very surprising.

The book is definitely good but I don't think it really breaks new ground in the "women who don't conform to society or spurn men's advances and therefore are seen as other and perhaps even nonhuman" genre. Overall I like it but didn't love it.

A beautifully written book about 5 sisters who may or may not be turning into dogs. Filled with ignorance, suspicion, latent evil and ignorance it’s a remarkable book.

beautiful, amazing and emotional! loved loved loved it! I wish there were more chapters with povs from characters that lived with the Mansfield sisters but I understand why most of it is narrated by people that aren’t too close to them.

I finished this book in one sitting. I could not put this down. It was such a great read. This should be on a lot of book club's list this year.

Thank you to NetGalley and Henry & Co. for the ARC of Xenobe Purvis’s The Hounding.

This is a book that haunts. Whispers and rumors get away from the town about the 'odd' Mansfield girls. What transpires is a serious of events and dramatic build that leave the reader with dread, and the perspective shifts from the different villagers keeping the voices of the girls out of conversations about themselves. What is believed to be more dangerous: a girl or a dog? Themes of humanity, misogyny, disinformation, and the distrust of girls whom men want to humble and control are prevalent throughout the book. I couldn't put it down or look away.

I can’t explain how much I loved this. It was stunning. It was weird. It was so enthralling. As soon as I read where it was described as “The Crucible meets The Virgin Suicides” I was immediately interested, and this surpassed all my expectations. I am usually not a fan of historical fiction, though I don’t know if I’d consider this apart of the genre. The setting worked really well, and the details of the setting were so atmospheric and added to the overall strangeness of the book. I am usually pretty weary of books with shifting points of view, but it actually worked really well in this book. All of the characters were very intriguing and the shifting points of view helped add to the tension of the story in this case. I was unable to put this down, and I’d say I enjoyed every minute of it, though I still don’t know how I feel about the ending. I’m so glad I was able to read this so early on, and I’ll definitely be ordering my own copy and requesting this at my local library. I think anyone who’s into weird gothic books as well as books with weird female main characters would enjoy this. 5 stars. Thank you so much to NetGalley and Henry Holt for this ARC.

An excellent debut novel! I deeply enjoyed the writing style, which I found to be vivid and clear. This novel follows many characters; however they all have such unique personalities and stories that it was easy to separate and keep track of them in my mind. I wish this book could have been a little longer and developed the characters and plot lines even further (I was particularly interested in Anne, Thomas, and Temperance). Nevertheless, the novel was strange, whimsical, and, at times, a bit frightening. I look forward to whatever Xenobe Purvis writes next!

A very interesting tale!
I picked this book up because of the cover at first. I love dogs and the plot summary intrigued me.
This story thrives on rumors, and how they spread in a small community.
I enjoy open-ended books, and this story's ending definitely has space for interpretation.
As a reader, you are not sure who is telling the truth in some parts. Very enjoyable read.
It's been giving me a lot to think about. This story will stick with the readers, at least for a little while.

I really enjoyed this! From start to finish I was engaged in the world created. Towards the end I did feel it start to falter but I do really think it stuck the landing. Great first finished book of 2025!

When the Mansfield sisters roam Little Nettlebed, they do so as a pack. Led by Anne, the stern elder, the five sisters pay little attention to the villagers around them, often responding to greetings with silence. Within the safety of their den on the edge of town, the sisters assist their ailing grandfather with housework, divert themselves with games and pranks, and mourn the recent loss of their grandmother. As a drought dries the Thames and the villagers grow restless in the heat, a rumor emerges about the sisters: that they can transform into dogs. Almost immediately, the village is alight with speculation, alleged sightings, and reports of peculiar behavior.

Purvis tracks this hysteria from its dormancy with resentments of the Mansfield family and their monetary gains during the last famine to its culmination in a fateful confrontation between the sisters and villagers. Unease pervades the novel heightening the atmospheric writing and challenging readers to question their surroundings. The Hounding is an enthralling debut!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC! All opinions are my own. :)
Oh, this was good. The moment I saw it pitched as The Crucible meets The Virgin Suicides, I was all in—and it somehow exceeded my expectations.

Set in a small sleep village encompassed by an ever-shrinking river, the story revolves around the five Mansfield sisters. Off-putting, a bit uppity, and each uniquely odd, they live with their grandfather in the shadow of their grandmother's recent death. They’re literally just minding their own business, being slightly creepy and delightfully distinct. Then, enter Pete Darling—a man who will quickly become your least favorite character...like ever. Pete is known for making outlandish claims (ferrying angels across the river? Sure, Pete, let’s get you a nap). His latest? That the Mansfield sisters are possessed by the devil and transforming into dogs—mostly, it seems, just to personally torment him. (Because, of course, it’s Pete’s world and we’re all just living in it.)

From Pete’s ridiculous accusations, rumors spread like wildfire. They slither through the village, passed along by many a man (ugh), but it’s no less engaging for it. The village is headed somewhere violent FAST.

Deliciously atmospheric and perfectly paced, this novel offers a fresh take on feminist horror. The writing is beautiful, the tension palpable, and the ending—posing the biting question, “Is it safer to be a woman or a dog?”—is one that lingers. Wickedly feminist, overwhelmingly dreadful, and deceptively simple in style, this book feels like a modern classic in the making.

This book was such a treat! Heavy on feminine rage and a group of sisters trying to navigate a town of people who believe they're slowly transforming into dogs. With themes around prejudice and conformity, lots of the topics highlighted here echo into the 21st century, Think this would also be a great book to market for Ottessa Moshfegh fans (think Lapvona)

My thanks to NetGalley and Henry & Co. for the ARC of Xenobe Purvis’s The Hounding.

This book reminded me of Shirley Jackson’s We have Always Lived in the Castle, which is a good thing. The only reason it was not five stars is that it felt so familiar: a story of women in a small town accused of supernatural behavior, all of which results in bloodshed. Like Jackson, though, Purvis makes good on the rumors while also,leaving a sliver of doubt. The Hounding is a very short book that I flew through in a single reading session, the pacing pulling me along but the town’s behavior fairly predictable. The binary gender / misogyny thread was also so expected as to almost be boring. It might have been more interesting had Purvis complicated some of the characters by queering them, such as Peter Darling and Robin. That said, however, I enjoyed this and it’s mostly well done 👍🏻

Xenobe Purvis’ The Hounding is one of those books that feels both familiar and entirely its own. People will immediately point to The Crucible, and sure, there are parallels—the fear, the control, the way a community can devour itself. But The Hounding is less about the spectacle of that destruction and more about the quiet, unsettling gaps in what we think we know when something new enters our familiar world.

The story is drenched in that dry, heavy heat that makes the air feel still and suffocating. While I read it in the dead of winter, this is a book made for the hottest days at the end of summer. Something about it demands long, hot days when the world feels suspended, and you can’t shake the tension.

What really stuck with me, though, is how much of the story is about what we don’t see. Purvis' rotating narrators, all unreliable in their own particular way, force you to question not just the characters' interpretation of events but your own as well. I found myself paging back to scenes I'd already read to see if I was misremembering something that happened earlier in the story.

At its core, The Hounding is about the fear of women—especially women who won’t sit down, shut up, or make themselves small. I loved that, though I wish Purvis had trusted us to connect the dots instead of spelling it out so clearly and so often. Still, this one, like the summer heat that suffuses its pages, lingers.

I could not put this book down. After looking over the synopsis I was very excited to read this novel. It thoroughly delivered on all it promised. It was strange, thrilling, mysterious, descriptive, dark, a bit gothic and at times scary. I loved how the author keeps the reader questioning the reality of what is truly happening in this village. The characters are intriguing and I found myself invested in each and every one. The finale did not disappoint. I highly recommend reading this strange and unexpected story.

The Hounding by Xenobe Purvis is the perfect example of what happens when young girls don't act within societal norms and shows the repercussions of outdated beliefs still followed by those surrounding them.

Five sisters. One grandfather. That's what makes up the Mansfields and so far they've been happy with their lives in Little Nettlebed. The rest of the village has long frowned upon them, jealous of their station and belongings. They think the sisters are aloof and their blind grandfather nothing but a fool who lets them run around unsupervised. Because aren't young women supposed to be proper and kept locked inside the house with their domestic duties? Well, the Mansfield sisters want none of that, much to the dismay of Little Nettlebed, especially the ferryman Pete. He's long loathed the young women and once he sees something strange happening to them, he makes it his mission to take them down, because demons are dangerous, even if they are in the shape of a dog.

This is such a phenomenal book. I loved the setting and the paranoid villagers who seem unable to let go of the notion of witchcraft. Even though this book is set in the 18th century, it still is relevant today. There will always be a bias on how girls are supposed to act, while boys get to run unleashed. Xenobe's prose is amazing and it transported me straight into Little Nettlebed and let me run alongside the sisters, while the rest of the village succumbed to mass hysteria.

Started off a little heavy handed with some very drawn out metaphors, but overall really enjoyed. Loved the writing style and the change of perspective. Was impressed by how rich each character was despite there being many of them and the book being fairly short.

Thank you NetGalley and Henry Holt and Co. Publishing for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

'The Hounding' is a wonderfully accessible parable. It was fast paced, well written, and reminiscent of classics such as 'The Scarlet Letter' and 'The Virgin Suicides'. However, while similar to these works, 'The Hounding' remains a unique and worthwhile read.