about the book
Sixteen-year-old Andrew Winston Winters is a tortured soul at war with himself. For years, he has been exiled to a remote Vermont boarding school. His parents have almost no contact with him since a family tragedy happened during a long-ago summer, a time he spent with his sensitive older brother, doting younger sister, and teenage Boston cousins.
That summer, everyone still called him Drew. Now he calls himself Win, a confused weird loner who shuts out all his classmates. Athletic and arrogant, he has mastered the art of intimidation. But in the grip of terrible mental anguish, he continues to hurt himself, and his violent behavior, which he often doesn’t remember, is becoming increasingly difficult to control. When a local townie’s body is found slashed and partly consumed near the campus, Win worries that he is the killer, an untransformed werewolf that harbors suffocating feral feelings.
As the novel jumps back and forth from Drew’s past to Win’s dark and confusing present, we learn two very different tales as the truth is slowly revealed. As the lasting trauma of tragedy is uncovered, Win begins to disassociate from reality.
Then one night, while stuck at a student party deep in the woods, Win with the help of a compassionate transfer student, uncovers the truth. Though he thinks he is a werewolf, the real monster is in his past. Will he surrender his sanity to the darkness in his mind or will he make peace with the truth and find help?
Warning: The book deals with some pretty heavy issues and you won’t be able to put it down until the very twisted climax.
about the author
Stephanie Kuen (pronounced keen) grew up surrounded by a crowd of diverse, creative people that came in and out of her home because her father was an editor at the San Francisco Chronicle. She loved their passion and their stories, and because of this, wanted to be a writer.
She would write down story ideas during class when she was daydreaming. In college, she drifted away from writing. Stephanie attributes this to being at school with so many talented writers that she was intimidated to take classes with them. It wasn’t until she was in her thirties and found some of her old writings that she made her way back to writing.
Stephanie’s first job was at a bookstore in Berkeley, California, where she fed her passion for books. Other passions of hers include mental health advocacy, social justice, and sports.
Stephanie holds degrees in linguistics and sports psychology. She is currently pursuing a doctorate in clinical psychology.
She lives in northern California with her husband, their three children, and their many pets.
Sources :
Author website
Author interview: The Brown Bookshelf
Author interview: YALSA
Also by Stephanie Kuehn:
Delicate Monsters. St. Martin’s Griffin. 2015.
Complicit. St. Martin’s Griffin. 2014.
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