Sundress Reads: Review of Wolf’s Bane

Moon Meridian Novella Award Winner, M.S. Gardner’s Wolf’s Bane (April Gloaming, 2025) toes the line between renowned fable and grotesque reality in a captivating account of one woman’s past, the secrets she holds, and those she uncovers. Gardner spellbinds readers with clever nuances, haunting imagery, and the unspooling of mystery’s threads in an estate in hot, humid Osyka, Mississippi.

Six months before the novella’s start, Gardner’s protagonist, Penny, flees back to Seattle straight after her grandma’s funeral, leaving behind her a trail of guilty excuses; but even she can’t run forever. At the behest of her grandma’s lawyer, Penny reluctantly returns to Osyka to clear out the house. The process is far from seamless, however, and the more of her grandparents’ belongings she sorts through, the harder it is to ignore the memories nipping at her heels.

The wolf still lurks in the shadows after all these years, the echoes of its presence as dogged as itself. Walking through a minefield of a dark past, Penny dodges the triggers as she clears the estate of any trace of its deceased owners, but a sealed letter from her grandma and the irritatingly persistent presence of Duncan, her childhood friend, bring things to a head. The wolf has always stalked her, but for the first time, Penny can no longer dodge it. She must face it, once and for all.

Gardner’s imagery is a masterpiece of shrewd descriptions and unshakeable connotations, immersing the reader in the growing mystery. Phrases such as: “shook her like a dog with a rat in its mouth” (Gardner 11) and “as Death had dragged away his sin-bloated soul” (Gardner 12) set a grisly tone early on.

Most fascinating, however, is Gardner’s use of a mundane piece of furniture, an old recliner, as a focal object which the characters move around both physically and mentally as the plot progresses. The recliner, belonging to Penny’s grandfather, is described as “a hideous mud-brown eyesore” (Gardner 11), and later, “an ugly shit-brown monstrosity, like a huge fat toad from a fairy tale, waiting in the forest to devour little girls who strayed from the path” (20). The descriptions foreshadow a monstrous conclusion through their negative connotations, drenching the reader with unease and the equal morbid desire to read on and find out the truth.

The integration of the recliner is seamless if not a core pillar of the plot. There stands the reader, alongside Grandma Connie at first, then Penny. The reader ignores the recliner when the women do, skirting around it like a large elephant that is at once impossible to ignore yet remains largely unacknowledged until Penny confronts it during her own catharsis.

Gardner carries us to the climax with delicate nuances and a confidence in the reader’s intuition, her writing strengthened by every detail she bestows upon us. With strong allusions to the Little Red Riding Hood fable, Gardner uses parallels of innocence and depravity—Penny’s childhood Red Riding Hood costume, handmade by her grandma, and her grandpa’s copy of the Barely Legal (61) magazine, which has a woman crudely dressed up in a red cape—to nudge the reader towards a horrifying conclusion.

Characterization is another of the book’s striking strengths. Penny, for instance, harbors intriguing dichotomies—a woman who is simultaneously clinical and volatile, a psychiatrist whose implied past childhood sexual abuse still looms over her. Gardner utilizes these inherent contrasts to wind the tension tighter in a raw exploration of trauma and its echoes into adulthood.

The dynamic between Penny and Duncan adds an interesting layer to Penny’s individual characterization. Conflict escalates when Duncan thoughtlessly sits in the recliner. In a frank portrayal of triggers, Penny’s responses grow increasingly frantic as she asks Duncan to get out of the chair, and the reader, who had thus far skirted around the recliner with Penny finally confronts its truth. Duncan embodies both past and present. His embodiment of the past informs Penny’s initial aloofness towards him—likely due to her unwillingness to associate with a traumatic part of her life—while his embodiment of the present inspires his role as a catharsis partner, playing a part in Penny’s healing by absorbing the shockwaves of her grief and righteous rage and later helping her destroy the figuritive wolf.

In a heart-wrenching nod to the inner child within Penny’s psyche, the reader witnesses the softness in her yearning for normalcy and care and feels the relief as acutely as she does when Duncan offers some of it:

“…she had to admit there was something homey, comforting, sitting in the kitchen, watching him cook, being tended to, served—the feeling of being safe and warm, like a child with no knowledge of good and evil” (Gardner 82).

Gardner’s mastery of her characters and subtext particularly shines through Penny’s dynamic with two deceased people: her grandparents. Through particular behaviors towards her grandparents’ separate belongings, the reader forms a vivid image of her relationship with each, one of resentment and hate vs. one of love and care:

“Clothes—pants, shirts, a suit, jackets, underwear, socks—were balled up and shoved into bags, along with shoes and boots, destined to be thrown away.” (41) vs. “Grandma’s room took more time. As Penny removed the clothes from their hangers, she folded each item before placing it in a bag” (42).

Wolf’s Bane dazzles with impeccable tension, witty prose—“dust bunnies as big as rabbits” (Gardner 32)—and side characters who are just as memorable. Readers venture through the dark forest and come out on the other side having killed the wolf with Penny. With a blend of fabulism and dark reality, Gardner wields the reader’s attention with an agility so mesmerizing, the reader is regretful to see the book end!

Wolf’s Bane is available through April Gloaming

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