RedWood

Blurb: Born as a farm dog, Seven has a grim life ahead of him. His days are filled with ghoulish tales about the wolves in the woods around farm. The rare thrill comes from his brother's sense of adventure and their games with the human children. Everything is as it is, and everything is as it will be. That is, until the humans return from their weekly hunt with a wolf in tow. An accidental encounter with the creature, Aineias, shatters Seven's perspective and...
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Blurb:

Born as a farm dog, Seven has a grim life ahead of him. His days are filled with ghoulish tales about the wolves in the woods around farm. The rare thrill comes from his brother's sense of adventure and their games with the human children. Everything is as it is, and everything is as it will be. That is, until the humans return from their weekly hunt with a wolf in tow.
An accidental encounter with the creature, Aineias, shatters Seven's perspective and once the wolf is gone, Seven is left with a new, irresistible draw to the woods. Following it means navigating the tensions of the forest, resisting the temptation of the past, and learning to become the very thing he was taught to revile. To take on a new name is to assume a new role, one which comes with a cold, tenuous acceptance from his new family and de facto sister, Fallasie, a cruel rival pack across the river, and danger from the very humans he left behind. Pressed in on all sides in a starving forest where every move feels like a betrayal, there's no telling to what lengths a desperate dog will go to outrun the monster in the woods.

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Ally Smithee formed the story of Seven/Raven as an angsty 10 year old caught up in Erin Hunter's first Warrior Cats series, Tui T. Sutherland's Wings of Fire, Kathryn Lasky's Wolves of the Beyond, Marion Dane Bauer's Runt, and aspirations to be a zoologist. It took her five years to actually finish it (and another few to get around to this), only to realize she'd actually grown up, wasn't a big fan of animals anymore, and her gritty, dark story about the universality of human nature against a slight backdrop of man-made climate change wasn't really something she wanted credit for*. Hence, she's paying homage to the long tradition of Alan Smithees, but she sincerely hope someone out there enjoys this. It's a bit of a dark, antihero middle to upper YA (depending on your maturity) story about a dog's slow descent into madness, and the growth of his sister from impulsive showoff to humbled, reluctant leader.

Has she sold it hard enough yet?



*Except maybe on her college applications. Which she has already submitted...