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eclectically_bookish 's review for:
Once There Were Wolves
by Charlotte McConaghy
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Inti and her twin sister, Aggie, have relocated from Alaska to Scotland. Inti is a biologist, and she and her team are working to reforest the Highlands by releasing wolves into the wild. They’ve also arrived to skeptical, sometimes outraged farmers worried for their livelihoods. When one farmer winds up missing, the town is quick to blame the wolves, but Inti knows better. But who has actually caused this disappearance?
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I thought the flashbacks to the past of Inti and Aggie growing up with their environmentalist, live-off-the-land father in British Columbia and their detective mother in Australia were well done. While heartbreaking, I also thought the slow reveal of the trauma they left behind in Alaska was handled delicately. I loved the setting and descriptions of the wolves and the way Inti was so connected to them because of her mirror-touch synesthesia. And while this was mostly literary fiction and mystery, with a whodunit involved, I also appreciated the romance between Inti and Duncan—both of them learning to trust and both questioning whether either of them was trustworthy. There were moments that as a reader, I was unsure of the answer to that. The novel poses some great questions about human nature and who the real beasts and monsters are. Is it wolves? Or is it us? I predicted what happened to Stuart (the missing man), but that didn’t affect my reading experience or the beauty of this book.
The audio narration by Saskia Maarleveld was FANTASTIC. I’m a slow listener, but sometimes I’ll boost my speed to 1.2-1.3x. I didn’t even want to on this one. I left it at actual speed the whole time—it was that good.
If you’re looking for something tense and suspenseful with a lot of heart, and something that transitions well from fall to winter, give this a try.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I thought the flashbacks to the past of Inti and Aggie growing up with their environmentalist, live-off-the-land father in British Columbia and their detective mother in Australia were well done. While heartbreaking, I also thought the slow reveal of the trauma they left behind in Alaska was handled delicately. I loved the setting and descriptions of the wolves and the way Inti was so connected to them because of her mirror-touch synesthesia. And while this was mostly literary fiction and mystery, with a whodunit involved, I also appreciated the romance between Inti and Duncan—both of them learning to trust and both questioning whether either of them was trustworthy. There were moments that as a reader, I was unsure of the answer to that. The novel poses some great questions about human nature and who the real beasts and monsters are. Is it wolves? Or is it us? I predicted what happened to Stuart (the missing man), but that didn’t affect my reading experience or the beauty of this book.
The audio narration by Saskia Maarleveld was FANTASTIC. I’m a slow listener, but sometimes I’ll boost my speed to 1.2-1.3x. I didn’t even want to on this one. I left it at actual speed the whole time—it was that good.
If you’re looking for something tense and suspenseful with a lot of heart, and something that transitions well from fall to winter, give this a try.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Domestic abuse, Rape
Moderate: Animal death