Thank you, Netgalley, for this arc. Not my favorite Laura McHugh novel, but I did like how it was set in Kansas (I'm a KS girl myself) and I did like the ending.

Laura McHugh writes great fiction. Always wonderful characters, with a history, and convoluted tales. The Wolf Wants In is another example. The story revolves around two women. Sadie Keller is haunted by the death of her brother. The police in rural Blackwater, Kansas seem uninterested in solving the crime which leads Sadie to launch her own search for the truth. Along the way, family secrets and her brother’s personal deceptions lead her down a convoluted path that reveals more questions than answers. And puts her life in danger.

Henley Pettit is an eighteen-year-old from the other side of the tracks. From a family with a long rap sheet. Her goal is to disappear, leave the town and her family behind. But shedding family history and leaving town is no easy task, and dangerous.

The tentacles of the two stories threaten to strangle both women before either can attain their goals. This disturbing and wonderfully written tale will keep you awake flipping the pages as fast as you can.


DP Lyle, award-winning author of the Jake Longly and Cain/Harper thriller series

A chilling novel, <i> The Wolf Wants In </i> perfectly captures the claustrophobic feeling of living in a small town - with all of its inherent dark secrets and the weight of familial responsibility. Two sisters attempt to discern the true cause of their brother's death, while a teenager experiences young love and tries to come to terms with the ramifications of her extended family's drug dealing. All of this is set against the backdrop of a young girl whose body is found in the woods and the hunt for her supposed killer.

All three of these stories intertwine in interesting ways by the end, however I often had a difficult time discerning who (and what) was important to the plot and what was just overly expounded red herrings. That's not to say that a thriller shouldn't throw out false leads, but the two timelines (Sadie in "current" time and Henley's from a few month before Shane's death) lead to more confusion than if the author had chosen to have the timelines occur concurrently, with alternating pov's.

Less a thriller, and more of a small town familial drama, <i> The Wolf Wants In </i> is a perfect summertime read, and one that will stick with the reader long after they've put the book down.

<i> A special thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a free advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion. </i>

As I was sitting here trying to think of what to rate this book, I can give it nothing other than 5 stars because I can’t think of a single negative opinion of this book. I just mesh with Laura McHugh’s writing and her story telling. I enjoy her atmospheric writing and the darkness of her stories.
This book has multiple points of view and multiple timelines – which is my favorite way to watch a mystery unfold.
We are following Sadie who is determined to figure out how her brother died which is overshadowed by the investigation into the deaths of her friend’s ex-husband and child. We are also following Henley who is a young girl wanting to escape her troublesome family and small Kansas town. Both are trapped by their family obligations and threatened by the violence and drugs that control the small town.
If you’ve enjoyed McHugh’s previous works you will enjoy this one as well.

Thanks to NetGalley for the early copy!

Not really the "thriller" I was expecting based on description, this book was more of a small town drama centered around opioid addiction and the aftermath of that through families. It was told in alternating points of view which I normally have no problem following, but this one was challenging for me for some reason. Maybe the families were too interwoven? It was hard to keep my attention, but I plowed through it and found myself a little disappointed. The ending was a letdown, perhaps it felt that way since it was a struggle to get through the content at times.

This story, The Wolf Wants In by Laura McHugh, is told by two characters, although there are many characters in this novel. After Sadie's young brother dies and leaves few clues, she feels it is her sibling duty along with the guilt she feels to find an answer. At the same time Henley, a clever and smart young girl know she has to leave this small, and to her, backward town. I was immediately drawn in by these characters and anxiously hoping they could and would reach their goals. So hard to put down, this story and it's end. Thank you #NetGalley #Spiegel&Grau #TheWolfWantsIn

In THE WOLF WANTS IN, by Laura McHugh, one woman, Sadie, is digging deep into her family, her past, and the truth about what happened in the death of her brother, Shane. Another woman, Henley, is trying to escape the life she has and all of the dead ends and sadness she is surrounded with. Yhe two main questions in the book are: Will Sadie's relentless pursuit produce the answers she desperately wants? Will Henley escape from the town of Blackwater emotionally and physically unscathed?
McHugh uses the two timelines of Sadie and Henley that are within months of each other, each chapter bouncing back and forth. As the novel progresses, the reader is slowly informed how Sadie's and Henley's lives interwine. It takes a while to fully understand each family and all the characters interactions with each other, and while there is a fun sense of discovery at times, it also makes the first part of the book confusing. By the second half of the book, it is clear how every character relates to one another, but I wanted to have a better grasp of that sooner, so I could dig deeper into the mysteries at hand. McHugh does do a remarkable job creating the physical and atmospheric scenes in the small town. The characters, not just Sadie and Henley, are quite well developed and interesting. McHugh creates them in such a way that the reader really feels like they know the characters well and yet those same familiar characters make surprising and completely logical choices that really feed into the excitement of the book. As all of those surprises culminate in the climax of the book, the reader is given the answers that they have been yearning for and can leave the small town of Blackwater content in the story that they have just taken in.
Confusing at the beginning but rewarding at the end, THE WOLF WANTS IN reminds the reader that in life, two things we often want more than anything is the truth and to escape, and life is a unique balance between the two.

What an amazing novel! The character development was incredible, the story line flowed seamlessly and I was captivated the whole time. Highly recommended!

I love the concept of a mystery-thriller that takes place in the very real world of opiate addiction... but this one never quite came together for me. I kept waiting for the two perspectives to meet up, or at least offer insight into one another, but until the very end, they didn't. That was slightly disappointing. Will read another by McHugh, though.

I really enjoyed this book. It doesn't read like a traditional mystery, but the plot was good and the characters well draw. Recommended.

This is McHugh's third novel - and the third one of hers that I have read - and I have to say, I think that this one is my favorite. Set in a small Kansas town, Sadie opens the narration - her life hasn't gone as planned, and after her older brother's sudden death, she is willing to fight his widow to uncover the truth of what happened. The small down itself is in a deep drug crisis, and Henley, a recent graduate and the other half of the narration, provides more detail in the way she is impacted by her mother's lifelong drug use and the shady behavior of her extended family.

The book is part family drama and part mystery as the context of Shane's death draws these two narratives together. Some of the timeline feels a little unclear, but otherwise, this is a very fast read that is genuinely hard to put down. Gravy, the dog, makes for an especially excellent addition. The plot takes some unexpected twists along with some that may be easier to see coming. I would have liked even more from the end - but that is probably just more about not wanting to say goodbye to these characters that felt so very authentic! The sense of setting is strong, the characters realistic and the engaging storyline all combine to make this a book that is quite easy to read in practically one sitting!

I like McHugh's writing style a lot and I am genuinely looking forward to seeing what her fourth book will be all about!

An interesting read. I would not call The Wolf Wants in a Thriller, it was definitely an intricate mystery. The characters were believable and fully developed right up until the end of the story. It came across as hurried and took pains to explain and nearly tie up all the loose ends. I found that the ending spoiled the rest of the story.

**I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review of this book

I couldn't really get into this book. It was alright and I have to really hate a book to DNF, but I did like the storyline of a brother who died and what happens to family member (before and) after. The title is really what drove me to read, since it has such an ominous wording. But overall, it didn't pull me in the way I wanted it to.

McHugh is such a talented writer and I always look forward to her books. THE WOLF WANTS IN is a terrific story--beautifully written and exquisitely plotted. It's perhaps a bit darker than her other books and if you're looking for a lighthearted read, you'll want to steer clear of this one until you can handle a story with some bitterness to it. Some readers may want the pace to move more quickly. However, I appreciated the rather slow revealing of clues and I thought the ending wrapped things up nicely. Recommended for fans of the Serial podcast, true crime stories, and related media.

First the positive: The Wolf Wants In was well written. The prose was tight, with no grammatical errors. The myster(ies) when they came, were interesting and fully detailed.

But for me, the story fell a little flat. It might have been the depressing topics (drug use, poverty, hopelessness of change). But more than that, it was the switching between narrators (who were hard to distinguish from each other), the time frames that weren't so obvious (months instead of seasons or years), and the length of time it took to get to real clues about what happened in the questionable deaths (for me, about 80-90% of the way through the book).

I think the author writes, well, this book just wasn't for me.

***Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for the e-book ARC I received***

4.5 stars

This is the author’s third book and like her other 2 books it is a book about a family with dark secrets. I loved her previous 2 books and this one as well, albeit this one was pretty dark. If you are looking for a light, cozy mystery then don’t pick this but if you can handle a deep mystery about our modern messy lives and families then you can’t go wrong with this one. It is told in 2 different points of view and alternating time frames giving you the before and after of the death of the main narrators brother. The mystery is interesting as are the characters.

Trigger warnings: death of a child, opioid addiction

"...and as time went by, our marriage became as frustrating as the baby sweater I'd tried to knit...a few dropped stitches, a pulled thread, and it was completely unrecognizable from the pattern I'd attempted to follow." My second book by Laura McHugh, and I enjoyed it immensely, even though it reminded me greatly of "The Weight of Blood." The story is told from the perspective of two narrators. In first person from Sadie's point of view, as she tries to understand her brother Shane's death, and in third person from Henley's point of view, as she tries to ignore that her family might have some involvement in Shane's death. Both women are incredibly engaging, real characters, struggling to find their places in or ways to leave a town ravaged by the opioid-epidemic.

P.S. Thanks much to LibraryThing and NetGalley for the ARCs.

The more I think about this book, the more I like it. The summer here in Michigan is off to a cold, rainy start and it was a good book to match the weather. I didn't love this book, but did fine it engaging and fairly fast paced. "The Wolf Wants In" tells of a small town plagued with drug addiction and deaths. The main character questions that her brother's death was of natural causes and launches into an investigation that involves many other members of her community in a hot, twisted mess. I can see this being a movie soon so read it now :)

Kansas; the Heartland, a beautiful country sprinkled with the occasional small town, some better off than others. One of the less fortunate, Backwater, Kansas is on a downward spiral due to drugs, lack of jobs and a quickly declining population. Laura McHugh’s descriptive and eloquent writing paints this town and its occupants in a palette so real and believable, the sadness and the revulsion is palpable.
Sadie and Henley will remind you of someone you’ve known in your own life, and there’s Crystyl, every small town has a Crystyl, and no one can stand her (behind her back). These beings may be fictional, but their characters and lives are real and thriving in our opioid-infested small towns. In a style reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy, dark but painfully realistic, I loved it.
(I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks so much to Random House- Publishing Group and NetGalley for making it available.)

I remember reading this author's first book, The Weight of Blood, and being so taken with the raw and gritty atmosphere she was able to create through the place setting and her characters. I definitely wanted to read more from her. This is my second read of the author's and I was not disappointed. Although, I think not as creepy or gritty as her first novel, I also don't think this story needed that depth to convey that feeling as it was definitely portrayed through the circumstances of poverty and the effects of the opioid crisis in this country. There is a very quiet, comfortable ease in which this author writes that I instantly feel at home inside her writing. The words flow easily and I get that incredible feeling of wanting to settle in for long periods of time soaking up each word.