Foxheart by Claire Legrand, Jaime Zollars (Illustrated by)

She was young when her parents brought her to the orphanage and left her.  The nuns took over her care, taught her chores and she was continually getting punished.  She deserved the punishment and refused to take it seriously.  She was seriously thinking about running away when the Wolf King showed up and everything went sideways!

Greenwillow Books and Edelweiss allowed me to read this book for review (thank you).  It will be published October 4th.

They just call her Girl because she won't tell them her real name.  She manages to escape but she no longer thinks of the Wolf King as a savior.  He appears to be evil.  When she hits the next village, she's hungry.  So she decides to steal some food.  She's been a successful thief at the orphanage so she's sure she can do it.  The house looks empty but there's no food.  She does get threatened by a boy with a knife.  She betters him with a spatula.

The family is poor, his parents are sick, and he has no money to buy medicine for them.  She still has confidence in her thieving ability, so she says she'll steal him some medicine.  They go up on the roof of a nearby building so she can see the town.  Then she hears someone calling her name.  No one knows her name except her parents.  Might it be her mother?

This is where the story gets really interesting.  No, it's not her mother.  It's herself at a much older age.  The lady she's speaking with admits she's a witch.  When the Wolf King approaches the village, she moves the girl and her dog and the boy.  They go to another time.  But the older woman is not well.  She has so much to train her in the witching business but it's not to be.

The girl learns a few things, experiments on her own and loves her dog.  In this story they call them monsters but I'd say he was her familiar.  With his help, she manages to stay alive.

 The story is rich with detail, it flows well, and you even end up rooting for the Wolf King.  It's a fine, magical tale that is fun to read.  Settle down, open the book and head down the road with the girl.