Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy was our book club choice for August. It is the story about a team of biologists who are in the highlands of Scotland to reintroduce wolves. The team is led by Inti Flynn, who brings along her traumatically damaged twin, in the hope that she can save both the wolves and her sister. We had a lot of discussion, and one thing I had not thought of was that while the story was supposedly about the wolves, the wolf story was almost an aside to the human strife dealing with a lot of abuse. At times it got a bit too gruesome for me. This is not a peaceful book, violence plays a key part in the story, and it was hard for me to read those parts of the book. At times I had to put it down and come back.
When a murder occurs, there is concern about who did it—was it human or wolves? I find it a bit hard to think the damage done by a human or a wolf could look similar, but who knows. I do really like mysteries, and I had not solved this one by the end. I was somewhat surprised—an interesting twist.
I thought the story was well-written but a bit too dark and disturbing, and a few parts a bit far-fetched. There were a lot of damaged characters, and only a few that you could really like. Could there have been parallels between the wolves and the abuse? I did enjoy learning about wolves. Why did no one in the community do anything to help stop the abuse? It led to some pretty good discussion.
Three readers really liked it with a rating of 3.5, two gave it a 3 and one a 2.5—so overall it got a 3.2 rating. Most said we would not have read it had it not been a book club choice, and probably would not recommend it to others, but one would.
I read a lot every month, and mostly mysteries, so sometimes it is nice to get out of my comfort zone. Thanks to friend Susan for recommending Ann Cleeves--I am going through them, along with CJ Box and Deborah Crombie each month, but I am reading another friends recommendation now called the Lioness. Not sure yet what I think. What are you reading that you would recommend?