I received an ARC for free via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This has not impacted my final rating of the book.

Inspired by the real-life mystery of the Beast of Gévaudan, We Are the Beasts follows a cast of characters disadvantaged - through gender, sexuality, and social class - in their society. Through the backdrop of mysterious deaths and animal attacks, they finally get a glimpse of something only dreamed about - freedom.

A great alternate title for this book would be "How to Fake Your Death in 18th Century France" because I'm pretty sure the entire cast did just that at some point. 
I found the characters, generally, to be very compelling and enjoyable. Josephine had a very engaging narrative voice, and I found this novel to be quite easy to read - I flew through the majority of it in a day. But I was disappointed in the lack of attention to historical detail. 
I would say I'm less bothered by the anachronistic language, especially because it flowed so well, than I was by the immense lack of detail. Nothing about this story felt grounded in the 1700s, other than a handful of mentions of the Seven Years War. Mostly, I was looking for details about clothing or church doctrine that would ground this story more firmly in its setting. Unfortunately, I found mostly un-descriptive references to dresses and undergarments and some very basic religious bigotry. I absolutely love opulent historical descriptions - give me fabrics and food and tallow candlelight and bumping carriages - so I was really very disappointed. This story could just as easily have been set last week and it wouldn't have made much of a difference. 
While a fun, feminist power story with some not-very-scary eerie moments, a historical horror novel, this is not. Much to my disappointment.