Skip to main content
Out on 03 September 2026

Blacktail

Synopsis

‘A modern masterpiece. Blacktail will consume you’ – Marcus Kliewer, bestselling author of We Used to Live Here

Blacktail is as glorious as it is gruesome’ – V. E. Schwab, Sunday Times bestselling author of Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil

A wolf embarks on a primal hunt for revenge. Blacktail is the highly-anticipated novel from Scott Hawkins, the critically acclaimed author of The Library at Mount Char.


Blacktail is a half-breed wolf, born to hunt. When he finds love beyond a garden wall, he dares to imagine a peaceful life – until men butcher his mate and unborn pups in a surgical act of cruelty. His grief ignites a rampage of torn throats and shattered bone, a slaughter so absolute it draws the gaze of an ancient feline witch. She sends him south to wake the sleeping Forest God and end the age of reason.

Fuelled by a rage that frightens Hell itself, Blacktail wages war against men and the beasts who dare defend them. From a gore-soaked wilderness to a burning confrontation with Heaven, Blacktail is a feral odyssey of vengeance.

The Forest God sleeps. But what will be the price of waking him?

* * *

‘Touching, horrifying, and entertaining . . . You should all get excited for this book’
Mark Lawrence, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Book That Wouldn't Burn

Blacktail is one to savor; one to delight in the eccentricities of; one to sit with long after it ends’
Olivie Blake, New York Times bestselling author of Girl Dinner

‘Beautiful, brutal fantasy, red in tooth and claw’
Chuck Wendig, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Staircase in the Woods

Details

03 September 2026
288 pages
9781037417153
Imprint: Tor Nightfire

Reviews

A tale of lupine vengeance – at first – whose stakes escalate to degrees I never saw coming. Unexpected, blood-soaked and vividly toldqntm, author of There is No Antimemetics Division
Blacktail is a journey through a universe simultaneously surreal and familiar, a tale that will leave claw marks on your brain that won't quickly fade. You simply won't read another book like itJason Pargin, author of John Dies at the End
Wickedly sharp, unflinchingly brutal, and nothing short of a modern masterpiece. Blacktail will consume youMarcus Kliewer, bestselling author of We Used to Live Here and The Caretaker
Mesmerizing and strange, like the headiest of folklore. Blacktail is one to savour; one to delight in the eccentricities of; one to sit with long after it endsOlivie Blake, Sunday Times bestselling author of Girl Dinner and The Atlas Six