Q&A: Lish McBride, Author of ‘Red In Tooth and Claw’

We chat with author Lish McBride about Red In Tooth and Claw, which is a dark young adult Western fantasy about a teen in a remote settlement full of monsters and secrets. PLUS we have the first chapter to share with you at the end of the interview!

Hi, Lish! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?

I’m historically bad at introducing myself for these things, which tells me that I’d do really poorly in the online dating world. I think that’s because eighty five percent of my personality is books and the last fifteen percent is a combination of coffee, internet animal videos, and movie quotes. But basically I live in the generally soggy and sometimes eerie Pacific North West, read a lot, and am the human equivalent of three raccoons in a trench coat. My goal in life is to get one of those libraries with a wheely ladder. Anything else about me really isn’t worth knowing.

When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?

I can’t remember a time when I didn’t make up stories and I wanted to be a writer as soon as I figured out that people wrote books. I remember writing and illustrating a picture book for school in first grade and being absolutely livid when I discovered that I’d screwed up the ending, so my inner critic also showed up early. I also remember critiquing my first grade reading book to my teacher on multiple occasions because I didn’t think it was written very well. I probably owe that teacher an apology. I was a menace.

Quick lightning round! Tell us:

• The first book you ever remember reading: To me? Probably The Monster at the End of this Book featuring Grover the Muppet. On my own? I mostly taught myself to read using Garfield comics.
• The one that made you want to become an author: I don’t have a specific book for this, but I can credit Terry Pratchett’s Disc World series for really making the idea, “fantasy can be funny” click into my head.
• The one that you can’t stop thinking about: All These Bodies by Kendare Blake, mostly because the ending can be interpreted two different ways and she refuses to tell me the real ending. It’s an excellent book and I’m obsessed with it despite this.

Your latest novel, Red in Tooth and Claw, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?

Humor is a coping mechanism.

No, wait, you probably want a proper answer. How about: Grief, loneliness, blood, love, and hope.

What can readers expect?

Something a little bit different. Red in Tooth and Claw is part western, part fantasy, part horror, and while it’s a blood-soaked story of grief and loneliness, it’s not bleak. There’s hope, friendship, and a little bit of romance, too. Ultimately, the book is about Faolan Kelly’s lonesome cry out to the world and what answers back.

Where did the inspiration for Red in Tooth and Claw come from?

From a movie, actually. I was watching a horror western film and I had an issue with the ending. This is not to say the ending was bad! Good art, in my opinion, creates discussion, and many of my books are in some way a discussion (or an argument) with other works or ideas. Anyway, I kept turning the film around in my head—so much so that it was waking me up at night. I just thought something like that film—horror, western, paranormal elements—would make such a good young adult book. Then one morning I woke up with Faolan’s voice in my head saying, “I didn’t remember my parents much, and what I do remember, I don’t mourn.” So I just sat down with my laptop and let her talk. For me the best writing zone I can be in is the one where it’s almost more like channeling than anything else.

Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?

Faolan is such a prickly character, so anytime she had to interact with a few of the other characters was always fun, but especially when she has to deal with Tallis. He’s got such a charming, easy going, and playful personality and it’s a great foil to Faolan. He drives her right up the wall, but he’s a good reminder to her that there’s joy in the world.

Did you face any challenges whilst writing?

While Red in Tooth and Claw is not set in our world per se, I wanted it to feel real, so I had to do a lot of research. While reading about the 1800s is helpful, a lot of those sources don’t have answers for the kind of questions writers have like how things smelled, tasted, or were actually used in a practical sense. Luckily there are a lot of people on the internet who make videos to show you how day to day life worked in those days, and I’m grateful for them. There’s also the fact that I really didn’t know where this book was going. I had a character and no real plot, so it was a nerve-wracking drafting process. I just had to trust that it was going somewhere and barrel forward.

What’s next for you?

My next young adult book is called Most Likely to Murder and will be out in the Spring of 2026! I’m really excited about this one. It’s a teen slasher comedy about what happens when the school yearbook shows up with a terrifying change—the pages where it should say things like, “best smile” or “most likely to succeed” have been altered to foretell the deaths of some of the students and faculty. Everyone thinks it’s a prank until the first body shows up. *cues ominous music*

Lastly, what books have you enjoyed so far this year and are there any that you can’t wait to get your hands on?

I’ve been writing so much this year that my TBR pile is basically feral at this point. For those looking for horror westerns, I highly recommend Red Rabbit by Alex Grecian and Lone Women by Victor Lavalle. I also really loved The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennet, which I listened to on audio. Books I’m super excited to crack into that I have right now are The Thirteenth Child by Erin A. Craig, A Sorceress Comes to Call (I will read literally anything T. Kingfisher writes) and Murder By Memory by Olivia Waite, which isn’t out yet but I managed to get my grubby little paws on an early copy. Two books I can’t wait for are Megan Bannen’s The Undercutting of Rosie and Adam (I am obsessed with the other two books in this series) and Chelsea Conradt’s book The Farmhouse, which is a psychological thriller/horror that I got to read early but isn’t out until June 2025. I cannot wait to read the finished version! (Sorry, this is a terrible question to ask me. I will always have eight hundred book recommendations.)

Will you be picking up Red in Tooth and Claw? Tell us in the comments below!