Realized last night that there is a part of my Yuletide canon that I didn't know about and now I have to consume it before I finish my assignment. Still have time, but this is cutting it a little close for me to discovering things in a canon I thought I knew well!

rachelmanija asked: What's your very favorite book that contains werewolves?

ASKING THE HARD QUESTIONS.

I think Stephen King's novella, Cycle of the Werewolf, is probably my favorite werewolf book, if I had to choose just one. It has a lot of things I love about werewolf stories: interesting lore (particularly around how the werewolf became a werewolf), monthly full moons around holidays as the base of the scenes (even though the holidays and full moons wouldn't really align like that, I love it enough that bending it to fit is perfect, and King flat out admits he did it), people unsuccessfully hunting monsters (the movie adaptation, Silver Bullet, has a great scene about this part), and a werewolf that is both somewhat sympathetic and still monstrous.

Couple of short stories that I love which are available free online:

The Moon and Other Beasts I Keep With Me by Danny Lore

The author said this on their site: It asks the same question that we ask ourselves as QPOC on a daily basis–when we are so othered that no one will believe that our experiences are authentic, where does that leave us?

This story is so damn good.

The Nasty at Bellua by Danny Lore (and NightLight: THe Black Horror Podcast did an amazing performance of this The Nasty at Bellua)

WEREWOLVES! IN! SPACE! It's creepy and dark and wonderful.

The Cage by A.M. Dellamonica

Identical twins, murdered sisters, interesting werewolf worldbuilding, terrible werewolf hunters, delightful queer romance, HUGE SECRETS -- it's great.

Last year, I read the Debra Doyle and James Macdonald werewolf series, Bad Blood, for the first time, and I fell in love with it. It's about Val Sherwood, a teen girl who becomes a werewolf accidentally and who has amazing adventures and fights for her friends and struggles to stay alive as people she loves are dying. By the third book, the worldbuilding gets weird, but I still love it.

A sampling of other books/series from my werewolf collection: Werewolf Marines by Lia Silver (heh), Goosebumps werewolf books (possibly all of them), Howl by Katy Lipscomb (a coloring and art book), the Raised By Wolves series by Jennifer Lynn Barnes, Bitten by Moonlight by Catherine Lundoff, Granite Lake Wolves series by Vivian Arend, Kitty Norville series by Carrie Vaughn, Leather, Denim & Silver: Legends of the Monster Hunter, and Wolfen by William Strieber (deeply creepy book; less creepy but still fun movie).