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A review by jojo_mando
The Wolves of Winter by Tyrell Johnson
4.0
Thanks to Simon and Schuster Canada, the author, and NetGalley for a free, electronic ARC of this novel received in exchange for an honest review.
There is a lot to like in the debut novel “The Wolves of Winter” by Tyrell Johnson. The main character Lynn McBride was the perfect person to narrate this story. Readers may think that this character has been done before – a girl, providing for her family, good with a bow and a dead father – but that is far from the case. She has her own distinct voice and she is a believable 23 year old who is trying to accept her life isolated in the wilderness of the Yukon while not really understanding any of the reasons that brought her family to live there in the first place. The story definitely benefits from this strong and realistic character.
Johnson set this story in a post-apocalyptic world that’s a little different than what we’ve seen lately in this genre. There is no clear dictatorship or strong central government in North America calling all the shots, and the cause of the world’s downfall was a mixture of all-out war between superpowers and a flu that killed much of the population. Lynn and her family are living in a remote valley in the Yukon, surviving by hunting game and eating potatoes and carrots. Readers slowly learn more about what brought the family to the Yukon and why they are living in such isolation, and that slow revelation keeps you engaged trying to put all of the pieces of their story together.
This book is well paced and there is a great mix of action scenes and quiet moments with our main character. It did take me a few chapters to really get into this book and I think that is mostly because Johnson has a direct way of writing and it took a little while for me to fall into his rhythm. But once I spent some time with Lynn McBride, I knew I needed to keep reading to find out where this story would take her.
I’m not sure if there is a sequel planned, and the story doesn’t necessarily need one.”The Wolves of Winter” comes to a relatively satisfying conclusion, but if Johnson decides to continue this story I will definitely be picking up that book.
There is a lot to like in the debut novel “The Wolves of Winter” by Tyrell Johnson. The main character Lynn McBride was the perfect person to narrate this story. Readers may think that this character has been done before – a girl, providing for her family, good with a bow and a dead father – but that is far from the case. She has her own distinct voice and she is a believable 23 year old who is trying to accept her life isolated in the wilderness of the Yukon while not really understanding any of the reasons that brought her family to live there in the first place. The story definitely benefits from this strong and realistic character.
Johnson set this story in a post-apocalyptic world that’s a little different than what we’ve seen lately in this genre. There is no clear dictatorship or strong central government in North America calling all the shots, and the cause of the world’s downfall was a mixture of all-out war between superpowers and a flu that killed much of the population. Lynn and her family are living in a remote valley in the Yukon, surviving by hunting game and eating potatoes and carrots. Readers slowly learn more about what brought the family to the Yukon and why they are living in such isolation, and that slow revelation keeps you engaged trying to put all of the pieces of their story together.
This book is well paced and there is a great mix of action scenes and quiet moments with our main character. It did take me a few chapters to really get into this book and I think that is mostly because Johnson has a direct way of writing and it took a little while for me to fall into his rhythm. But once I spent some time with Lynn McBride, I knew I needed to keep reading to find out where this story would take her.
I’m not sure if there is a sequel planned, and the story doesn’t necessarily need one.”The Wolves of Winter” comes to a relatively satisfying conclusion, but if Johnson decides to continue this story I will definitely be picking up that book.