Jatta (novel)

Jatta is a fantasy novel by Australian author and illustrator Jenny Hale. Set in an alternate world, its heroine Jatta discovers in the days before her fourteenth birthday that she is a werewolf. As the wolf inside Jatta grows, it continues to morph. When it impinges on her waking hours, Jatta realises her personality will disintegrate. Eventually none of her gentle humanity will be left.

The novel deals with themes of forgiveness and how we are sculpted by family and culture. It investigates societies by contrasting Jatta's pacifist, compassionate and vulnerable ‘Alteeda’ with the brutal, militarily successful Kingdom of Dartith. Once in Dartithan custody, both Jatta and her brother Arthmael are faced with impossible decisions: whether to choose others’ deaths, thus compromising their own souls.