Sisters Red »

If Jackson Pearce had three wishes, she would wish for wisdom and patience and for life to be a little more like a musical. She began writing when the school librarian told her there weren't any books that contained a smart girl, horses, baby animals, and magic. Her solution was to write the book herself. Her parents thought it was cute at first but have grown steadily more concerned for her ever since.

Jackson currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with a slightly cross-eyed cat and a lot of secondhand furniture.

Scarlett March lives to hunt the Fenris—the werewolves that took her eye when she was defending her sister Rosie from a brutal attack. Armed with a razor-sharp hatchet and blood-red cloak, Scarlett is an expert at luring and slaying the wolves. She's determined to protect other young girls from a grisly death, and her raging heart will not rest until every single wolf is dead.

Rosie March once felt her bond with her sister was unbreakable. Owing Scarlett her life, Rosie hunts ferociously alongside her. But even as more girls' bodies pile up in the city and the Fenris seem to be gaining power, Rosie dreams of a life beyond the wolves. She finds herself drawn to Silas, a young woodsman who is deadly with an ax and Scarlett's only friend—but does loving him mean betraying her sister and all that they've worked for?

Publishers Weekly

The psychosexual implications of "Little Red Riding Hood" have been explored since the days of Bruno Bettelheim, and Pearce (As You Wish) tackles them with enthusiasm in this grisly contemporary reimagining. Scarlett March, 18, scarred and missing an eye after killing the "Fenris" who slaughtered her grandmother, now lives to hunt the werewolflike creatures that relentlessly stalk and murder girls far and wide. Her 16-year-old sister, Rosie, has also been trained to hunt, but feels the tug of a different life and kills Fenris only out of loyalty to her beloved sister. The neighboring woodman's son, Silas, has been a reliable ally, but he, too, has begun to think about other things--including Rosie. Still, all three move from their rural town to Atlanta when the opportunity comes to strike a major blow against the Fenris, the urban landscape becoming the vehicle of discovery for them all. Although it remains fuzzy why the trio shoulders the burden of combating the Fenris alone, rather than exposing the creatures to the rest of the populace, it's a well-told tale that does not suffer from the fairy tale predictability of its outcome. Ages 15-up. (June)