My Two Cents: TURN by Megan Stockton

One of the earliest descriptions of a werewolf can be found in "The Epic of Gilgamesh," the first-ever recorded story in human civilization. In the millennia since that ancient debut, stories of wolves and men, and the amalgamation of the two, have fascinated and terrified mankind. In her latest novel, "Turn," author Megan Stockton offers an imaginative take on the classic horror trope, combining body horror, creature-feature, and, at its heart, a love story in a gruesome, heart-wrenching combination.

In "Turn," newlyweds Ezra and Holden are on their honeymoon, trading in the familiar skyline of the city for the quiet, wooded foothills of rural Tennessee. Holden grew up in the country, and wants to share his love for these quaint roots with his new husband. Ezra would much rather be vacationing at a deluxe resort with room service, but he loves Holden and thus is willing to play along. And at first, everything seems picture perfect. The cabin they've rented, although out in the middle of nowhere, is charming and cozy, within walking distance of hiking trails, a fire pit, and a beautiful lake that's perfect for fishing or swimming. And even though a woman at a local convenience store warns the lovebirds that they shouldn't go out after dark -- they shouldn't be staying at that cabin at all, she says -- Ezra tries to convince himself that it's not so bad, after all. Besides, he's with Holden, and that's all that matters.

Of course, from there, things start to go wrong. Ezra and Holden catch glimpses of a strange, hulking figure in the woods that seems to be watching them. The power goes out at the cabin, plunging them into darkness, and when the owner of the cabin sets off into the woods to restart the generator, he never returns. A powerful storm lambasts the area, knocking out trees and blocking the only road leading to or from the mountain, leaving Ezra and Holden stranded. Alone in the forest, while trying to track down their wayward landlord, Holden stumbles across something monstrous, and when he tries to flee for safety in the cabin, he's attacked. Although he manages to escape, he's bitten in the scuffle, and from there, things get even worse.

We all know the legends. Once you're bitten, you begin to turn. Stockton leans fully into this tried-and-true premise, but in an interesting twist, Holden's transition from man to monster isn't sudden, swift, or limited to only moonlit nights. Instead, it's insidious, a creeping hunger that begins to grow inside of him, a slow and methodical rewiring of his body's impulses and needs. At first, he mistakes these changes as physical desires, but slowly, to his horror, he discovers they are much worse. As that relentless hunger begins to consume him, he finds himself growing increasingly more helpless to resist it -- and the gruesome urges it compels him to slake.

As a reader, you expect a werewolf story to be bloody and violent, and Stockton delivers. Surprisingly, however, she also manages to portray horror in smaller, quieter moments as well, and it's here that the true terror lies. Holden is disgusted and dismayed by the lengths to which he finds himself -- against his will -- satisfying his new bestial compulsions, while Ezra struggles to reconcile the gentle, caring man with whom he fell in love with this new, bloodthirsty stranger jockeying for control of Holden's body and mind. It's their love that propels the story and allows Holden to hang onto the fraying strands of his humanity while Ezra desperately tries to find a way out of a seemingly hopeless predicament, some means by which he can free Holden from his terrible fate.

"Turn" swings back and forth between intimate-scale horror and big, bold, and bloody, but never feels like it doesn't know where it's going or what kind of story it wants to be. It's a tale told with confidence, sincerity, and heart, with as keen an eye toward the grisly details as it is the tender, heartbreaking moments in between. Stockton takes timeless lore and makes it uniquely her own, and the end result is fantastic.

"Turn" is available here.