by LINDY RYAN
Release Date: October 4, 2022
Publisher: Berkley
Rating: 5/5 Bites
Rachel Harrison (Cackle, The Return) comes howling in for the Halloween holiday with Such Sharp Teeth [Berkley, October 4, 2022]—a werewolf body horror novel with every bit as much bite as the title promises.
When Aurora’s pregnant twin Scarlett calls her sister in for help, Rory puts her life in the city on hold to come home to take care of her sister. Her homecoming turns out to be even less exciting than she expects when she’s attacked driving home from a local pub (where she bumped into a high school pal turned new flame, rawr). Thinking she hit a bear, Rory gets out of her vehicle to check for damage and roadkill and is accosted and bitten by a strange animal. Luckily, the beast is distracted by an easier prey before it can finish its feast. Luckily again, the bite is healed by the time Rory wakes up in the hospital. Unluckiest of all, the aftermath of the damage left beneath her skin is far from over.
Besides bleeding silver goo and finding fur trapped under our skin, Rory’s acclimation to life as a werewolf isn’t the only body horror rollercoaster waiting for readers. Scarlett is experiencing a type of body horror too familiar to be foreign: pregnancy. Both sisters undergo mental and physical transformation as they face twin scenarios in which their body is no longer completely their own. Being unexpectedly pregnant and mutating into a werewolf every full moon are a contrast to be sure, but Harrison’s visceral, delicate handling of both serves not to diminish either woman’s experience but remind readers that even natural transformations can be monstrous. Such Sharp Teeth is creature feature meets body horror, fierce and female and never forgetting the power that women’s bodies are capable of.
Vivid and visceral, Harrison’s readers experience every stinging pain, every grotesque change, every absurd hunger that Rory experiences during her transformation, giving fresh bite to our inner wolves.
