{"id":21202,"date":"2026-09-03T16:04:21","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T20:04:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/?p=21202"},"modified":"2026-09-03T16:04:21","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T20:04:21","slug":"review-blacktail-by-scott-hawkins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/review-blacktail-by-scott-hawkins\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Blacktail by Scott Hawkins"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/p\/books\/blacktail-a-novel-scott-hawkins\/5cd973683217095d?ean=9798217089963&amp;bkshp-astro=t\"><i>Blacktail<\/i> by Scott Hawkins\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Crown (September 1, 2026)\u00a0<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Reviewed by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/wherethehorrorsgrow\/\">Chandra Claypool\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Welcome to <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Blacktail<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, a dark fantasy, magical realism story.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Blacktail is a wolf out for revenge. His mate, a house dog, is killed by the \u201ctwo legs.\u201d He has not only lost her but their puppies, too, and he takes vengeance on the humans. There will be more bloodshed, and the two legs must fall. <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"21204\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/review-blacktail-by-scott-hawkins\/blacktail\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/blacktail-scaled.jpg?fit=1651%2C2560&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"1651,2560\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"blacktail\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/blacktail-scaled.jpg?fit=660%2C1024&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-21204\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/blacktail.jpg?resize=226%2C350&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"226\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/blacktail-scaled.jpg?resize=226%2C350&amp;ssl=1 226w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/blacktail-scaled.jpg?resize=660%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 660w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/blacktail-scaled.jpg?resize=768%2C1191&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/blacktail-scaled.jpg?resize=991%2C1536&amp;ssl=1 991w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/blacktail-scaled.jpg?resize=1321%2C2048&amp;ssl=1 1321w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/blacktail-scaled.jpg?resize=1200%2C1861&amp;ssl=1 1200w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/blacktail-scaled.jpg?w=1651&amp;ssl=1 1651w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 226px) 85vw, 226px\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Blacktail is faithful to the Forest God, but in times like this, faith is not enough. Drawn to his fury, a feline witch makes him an offer. What if Blacktail could end the human race altogether? First, he must find and wake the Forest God, and with the woods dwindling, he has no other choice.\u00a0<\/span><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I am a HUGE animal lover. I name all the wild animals outside and build lives for them with silly conversations, making up stories about them. So, when I realized that <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Blacktail<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is told from the point of view of various animals, I thought:<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0YES, YES, YES!!!<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I really appreciated how Blacktail was able to communicate with one particular human. It was genius and certainly not what I expected. You will have to read this to understand what I am talking about, but I enjoyed this part. I will also side-eye coyotes a bit more moving forward.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What I enjoyed the most about <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Blacktail<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> was how the author brings the reader into the animal world, showing how they communicate, how they view their surroundings, whether it is the cars on the roads that now split their territories with pavement and danger, or how predators and prey sometimes resign to their fates or work together to try and bring forth a different future.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I did feel certain parts dragged a bit, and the ending didn&#8217;t quite wow me the way I expected after the journey I went on with Blacktail and the other animals. However, I had a lot of fun with this read.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A very unique story that you should add to your to-be-read pile immediately.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Blacktail by Scott Hawkins\u00a0 Crown (September 1, 2026)\u00a0 Reviewed by Chandra Claypool\u00a0 Welcome to Blacktail, a dark fantasy, magical realism story.\u00a0 Blacktail is a wolf out for revenge. His mate, a house dog, is killed by the \u201ctwo legs.\u201d He has not only lost her but their puppies, too, and he takes vengeance on the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/review-blacktail-by-scott-hawkins\/\" class=\"more-link button bg-gold white\">Continue Reading!<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Review: Blacktail by Scott Hawkins&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[80],"tags":[3081,3705],"class_list":["post-21202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-chandra-claypool","tag-scott-hawkins"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.4 - 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