Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy (audiobook)

 genre: contemporary fiction/mystery

For many lifetimes, the Scottish highlands have been empty of wolves. They were actively hunted to the point of non existence - but ecologically, this hasn’t been a good thing. And Inti (along with her twin sister Aggie) has arrived with a team of biologists to reintroduce wolves into the forests to try and begin healing the ecosystem. The team isn’t particularly welcome, though, amongst the farmers and herdsmen of the highlands, and as tensions over the wolves rises amongst the locals and Inti’s team, she herself has her own demons that demand to be fought.

I am not a habitual mystery reader but the premise of this really interested me (but I don’t think I actually understood that it would end up being a mystery, so there is that) but from the first chapter I was HOOKED. This is such a dark and atmospheric read. The wolves are fascinating and their role in the story makes it so tense sometimes. Not only that, you can’t figure out which humans to trust either and everyone seems to have violence in them or done to them but there is also humanity and a deep love for the earth and the creatures on it. Sometimes the violence felt like a little TOO much and Inti was a really complicated character who sometimes was super frustrating but it didn’t impact my desire to find out what would happen.

Like I said earlier, this is DARK. It’s not for everyone. It has abuse and upsetting images and s**ual trauma. But it was also so freaking beautiful. And when a book has all that and still I can’t stop listening, that’s a five star rating from me.