We Are the Beasts

by Gigi Griffis

First published 2024

Amazon

3.7(761)

Gévaudan in the 1760s. As unexplained animal attacks spread fear through isolated villages, sixteen-year-old Joséphine and her friend Clara recognise that the panic may offer abused girls a route out of homes that have become prisons. They begin staging disappearances and hiding the supposed victims, using rumours of the Beast to conceal a rescue effort that could condemn them if the villagers discover the truth.

The novel combines historical horror with a story of friendship, resistance and survival in rural France. The Beast of Gévaudan attacks of 1764–1767, the danger faced by young shepherds and the competing religious and natural explanations are historical; Joséphine, Clara and their clandestine network are fictional. The unresolved identity of the Beast allows the story to preserve uncertainty without requiring a supernatural explanation.