Beautifully addictive, this memorable novel still haunts my thoughts. As a heatwave strikes, and strange things occur, five sisters find blame is flung their way. Debut author Xenobe Purvis writes with a bewitching pen, her descriptive detailing evokes feelings and the sense of place of Little Nettlebed ran amok through my thoughts. Even as the atmosphere and accusations lie heavy and wallow along with the heat, there is also a purity and lightness of touch to be found. The innocence of joy and the strength of friendship and love, butt up against the shackles of community and danger of mob hysteria. I absolutely adored the sense of intrigue that kept me company, I found myself swaying, uncertain as to what I was witnessing. There were times when I felt as though I was tiptoeing through glass shards, intently watchful, careful, ready to gather up my thoughts and run. This richly heady yet emotionally intelligent novel just had to enter our LoveReading Star Books Category, and I’ve also chosen it as a Liz Pick of the Month. Provocative and bewitching The Hounding is an intensely powerful read. Highly recommended.
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.
'Haunting and beguiling, this fever dream of a novel draws you in and colours your mind all shades of doubt and suspicion' STACEY HALLS
'Melancholy and bittersweet' OTEGHA UWAGBA
'A novel of rare grace and skill, exquisitely wrought and simmering with feral violence' ROWE IRVIN
'Haunting, dark and visceral' FLORA CARR
Author
About Xenobe Purvis
Xenobe Purvis was born in Tokyo in 1990. She read English Literature at Oxford University, 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, currently co-editing a volume of Christopher Isherwood's selected letters. Her essays have been published by the TLS, The London Magazine, and others, as well as in collections in the US and UK.
Her debut novel THE HOUNDING will be published in 2025.
