20 Best Werewolf Books to Read

Stephen King’s classic horror novella is set in a fictional town in Maine, where a werewolf kills local citizens each month during the full moon. Each chapter is a different month, mainly following a 10-year-old boy named Marty.

Ali Hazelwood’s Bride was a smash hit this year, thanks to #BookTok. The romance novel follows Misery, the daughter of a powerful vampire, who has to marry Lowe, the head of a werewolf pack, so they can create peace between their species. “Bride is first and foremost a romance novel, so I tried to include just enough worldbuilding to make sure that the love story would feel grounded and that the trust issues Misery and Lowe needed to overcome would seem justified,” Hazlewood says.

Empire of Wild‘s story draws from the Canadian Métis legend, the rogarou, a werewolf-like creature. The story follows Joan, who is searching for her missing husband, Victor. When she hears his voice from a revival tent, she tries to figure out why the mysterious Reverend Wolff sounds like her lost husband.

In The Last Werewolf, Jake is 200 years old and is done living. As the last werewolf on earth, he’s dealing with an existential crisis. But there are dangerous groups that have different reasons to want to keep him alive. “Cerebral and campy, philosophical and ironic, The Last Werewolf is a novel that’s always licking its bloody lips and winking at us,” the Washington Post wrote in their review. A dark thriller that explodes with enough conspiracies, subterfuges and murders to raise your hackles.”

Angela Carter’s famous collection The Bloody Chamber features her dark spin on classic fairy tales, including “The Werewolf,” which is based on Little Red Riding Hood. We won’t spoil the twist…

The Werewolf of Paris, published in 1933, is one of the earliest works of werewolf fiction, and it follows Bertrand Caillet, the titular werewolf, as he experiences the the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune of 1870–71.

This graphic novel is three illustrated stories; in the first, “The Werewolf at Dusk,” an aging werewolf bemoans getting older. As the publisher writes, “He―an impotent werewolf, no longer able to hunt―confronts the terror of obsolescence. What do I even look like now, he wonders, when the full moon draws out the wolf inside me?”

Marie de France is the earliest known French woman poet (if you read Lauren Groff’s Matrix, you may be familiar with her), and this collection of her stories includes Bisclavret (“The Werewolf”), about a werewolf who gets trapped in his lupine form by his treacherous wife.

Author Anne Rice may be best known for her vampire books, but she dipped a toe into werewolf fiction with The Wolf Gift. The book follows Reuben Golding, a young reporter who is attacked one dark night and grapples with his new transformation.

In this historical fantasy thriller from Robert McCammon, Michael Gallatin is a Russian émigré turned operative for the British Secret Service, who is sent into Nazi-occupied France to uncover the Gestapo’s plans. He’s also a werewolf. As Publisher’s Weekly notes, The Wolf’s Hour is a “richly detailed, intricately plotted, fast-paced historical suspense” that is “enhanced by McCammon’s unique take on the werewolf myth.”

Based on one of the Lais of Marie de France (see above), Gillian Bradshaw’s The Wolf Hunt follows Marie Penthièvre of Chalendrey, who is abducted from her Norman priory. She swears to not marry, but she falls for Tiarnán, a skilled, noble knight. But when he disappears and is presumed dead, Marie knows something is wrong.

The fifth book in Oliver Pötzsch’s Hangman’s Daughter series takes on the werewolf myth. Hangman Jakob travels to Bamberg with his daughter Magdalena and his son-in-law Simon for a family holiday, but it’s soon disrupted by rumors of a werewolf murderer.

If werewolf romance is more your thing, How to Help a Hungry Werewolf is advertised as “What We Do in the Shadows with the small town feels of Gilmore Girls.” In this novel, Cassie returns to her hometown to help clean out her late grandmother’s home. There, she finds her former best friend, Seth, on her doorstep—and discovers he’s a werewolf. And that Cassie is the only one who can help him…

In this coming-of-age werewolf story, a young boy tries to understand his place in the world. Author Carrie Vaughn blurbed, “Mongrels isn’t just a coming-of-age story or a horror story. It looks at the world through a disturbing, uncomfortable lens, and offers up a brutal mythology of werewolves. I’ve never seen anything quite like it and I won’t forget it anytime soon.”

Ox grew up thinking he was going to be alone his entire life. That’s until Joe Bennett and his family move in next door, and Ox is immediately drawn to the mysterious family. “In the pages of Wolfsong, I found a home with a pack of ridiculously wonderful people who make bad decisions for mostly the right reasons,” author TJ Klune explains. “They’re so painfully human, even when they’re not. They make mistakes, they grow, they learn, they win, they lose, they suffer, and they fight for themselves and each other.”

In this young adult romance, Grace has grown up watching the wolves behind her house. One yellow-eyed wolf, in particular, she can’t seem to stay far away from. One summer, Grace meets Sam, a yellow-eyed boy who she’s sure must be her wolf. But as the season changes, Sam must fight to stay human.

Yes, the Twilight saga deserves a spot on this list—namely, New Moon, in which Bella becomes close with Jacob, and learns he’s a werewolf.

Another key literary werewolf of the 2000s is Remus Lupin, who was introduced in the third Harry Potter book.

This young adult novel is about an online support group for Gen Zers living with chronic illness. Priya, who is dealing with Lyme disease, is home from Stanford and writing to online pen pal, Brigid. But when Brigid suddenly goes offline, Priya, on a whim, decides to drive to Pennsylvania to check on her. There, she discovers that Priya may actually be a werewolf.

From Syracuse University Press, this anthology features 22 werewolf tales that “offer an unprecedented look at the mystique of the werewolf in relation to human behavior and varied aspects of the human psyche… Its stories span centuries. Its storytellers, from Stephen King to Saki, de Maupassant to Kipling, Seabury Quinn to Ovid, are eclectic. Its premise delves deeper into its subject than previous, often sensational, collections.”