Stray

by Angélique Jamail

"Captures the mixed emotions of eagerness for adulthood and the heartache of getting there that all teens go through." - Reader Review



Raqia knows the sting of loneliness more than most. As a toddler, she and her grandmother immigrated to Texas to escape the wolf packs terrorizing their home in Lebanon. Growing up with no siblings and an estranged father, Raqia always relied on her neighborhood best friends, siblings Anabelle and Eddie, to keep from feeling like such a stray. 



But now that Raqia is a teenager, the gnawing pain of isolation is back. Eddie emerged as a wolf in seventh grade, propelling him into the role of a football star in high school. Meanwhile, neither Raqia nor Anabelle shows any trace of an Animal Affinity, a vital rite of passage into adulthood. Despite everyone saying Affinities can emerge later in life, they can't help but feel like they'll never find themselves. 



Around them, the world grows more dangerous. On the cusp of homecoming, the violent wolf packs Raqia thought she left in Beirut begin popping up in the local news. Even though Eddie swears he's not part of these gangs, both he and Raqia face visceral anger and anxiety over them.



And when emotions run high and one weekend erupts in a life-altering event, Raqia, Eddie, and Anabelle's tight-knit trio ends up in tatters. Is it possible for them to go back to the way things were, or will Raqia need to reinvent herself again?

239 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 2, 2026

About the author

Angélique Jamail is a Lebanese-American author whose poetry, short fiction, and essays have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals, including Synkroniciti, Equinox, New Reader Magazine, Waxwing, The Milk of Female Kindness, Femmeliterate, Literary Mama, and others, and her poetry has been featured on the radio. Her work has been nominated for Best Small Fictions and Best of the Net (for essay), has been a finalist for the New Letters Prize in Poetry, and has won various essay contests. The first time she read one of her stories to an audience was fourth grade; it was a character-building experience. Her novelette Finis. (Odeon Press), first published in 2014, has been praised by fiction writer Ari Marmell as having “some of the most real people I’ve encountered via text in a long time,” and by poet Marie Marshall as “a witty tale of conformity, prejudice, and transformation, in a world that is disturbing as much for its familiarity as for its strangeness.” Her poetry collection The Sharp Edges of Water came out in 2018, and Homecoming, a standalone follow-up to Finis., in 2020, both from Odeon Press. Her novella A Narrowing Path will be published by Memento Vivere Press in 2025. She is the Creative Writing Director at The Kinkaid School in Houston and began serving on the Board of Directors for Mutabilis Press in December 2019. She’s also the creator of the popular zine Sonic Chihuahua. Find her online at her blog Sappho’s Torque and on social media.

website: www.AngeliqueJamail.com
blog: www.SapphosTorque.com

IG: angeliquejamail
Facebook: Angélique Jamail, Author
BlueSky: @angeliquejamail.bsky.social

Reviews

[Brenda Liebling-goldberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the very first page, Angelique Jamail plunges the reader into the mysterious world of Animal Affinities, a highly imaginative world that she has explored previously in many of her earlier pieces. This longer work about the perils of teenage angst is both lyrical and wildly original. It is also filled with Jamail‘s trademark subtle humor. If you like coming of age stories that are both psychologically sound and exquisitely written, this book is for you!