Once There Were Wolves

By Charlotte McConaghy,

Book cover of Once There Were Wolves

Book description

A wild and gripping novel about one woman's quest to reintroduce wolves to the Scottish Highlands at any cost.

Inti Flynn arrives in the Scottish Highlands with fourteen grey wolves, a traumatised sister and fierce tenacity.

As a biologist, she knows the animals are the best hope for rewilding the…

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Why read it?

3 authors picked Once There Were Wolves as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

With a killer of a first sentence, this novel clenched me by the throat and wouldn’t let go.

The main character, Inti, a biologist with a rare neurological understanding of touch, sets out with three colleagues to rewild northern Scotland by reintroducing fourteen wolves into the environment. Once lush with woodlands providing cover and sustenance for native wildlife, the hills are now bare and tame.

Though a naturalist at heart, I didn’t fully realize the importance of Alpha predators to the environment. As Inti struggles to win over the local sheep farmers while protecting the wolves (and one breeding pair…

My final selection was surprising in all the best ways. It is the story of conservationist Inti Flynn and her quest to reintroduce wolves to the Scottish Highlands, hoping to save the crumbling ecosystem while she struggles with the collapse of her own life. What makes this story special is that it not only evokes empathy for the wolves, it also emphasizes the connections we have to the earth and to each other, and how our individual, often trauma-informed decisions have cascading and unintended effects. The whole story is an allegory for the environmental balance that is essential for survival,…

I’ve been a fan of Australian author Charlotte McConaghy since reading her first novel, Migrations—and Once There Were Wolves is just as beautifully written and page-turning, with the same reverence for nature and its creatures. The novel is about biologist Inti Flynn, who leads a team in Scotland to reintroduce gray wolves to the Highlands, bringing along her identical twin, Aggie. Like the wolves, Inti and Aggie are closely bonded, instinctually and fiercely protective of each other. Aggie has suffered a trauma, and Inti herself lives with a condition called “mirror-touch synesthesia,” in which her brain causes her body…

From Midge's list on saving animals.

Let Evening Come

By Yvonne Osborne,

Book cover of Let Evening Come

Yvonne Osborne Author Of Let Evening Come

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up on a family farm surrounded by larger vegetable and dairy operations that used migrant labor. From an early age, my siblings and I were acquainted with the children of these workers, children whom we shared a school desk with one day and were gone the next. On summer vacations, our parents hauled us around in a station wagon with a popup camper, which they parked in out-of-the-way hayfields and on mountainous plateaus, shunning, much to our chagrin, normal campgrounds, and swimming pools. Thus, I grew up exposed to different cultures and environments. My writing reflects my parents’ curiosity, love of books and travel, and devotion to the natural world. 

Yvonne's book list on immersive coming-of-age fiction with characters struggling to find themselves amidst the isolation and bigotry in Indigenous, rural, and minority communities

What is my book about?

After her mother is killed in a rare Northern Michigan tornado, Sadie Wixom is left with only her father and grandfather to guide her through young adulthood. Miles away in western Saskatchewan, Stefan Montegrand and his Indigenous family are displaced from their land by multinational energy companies. They are taken in temporarily by Sadie’s aunt, a human rights activist who heads a cultural exchange program.

Stefan promptly runs afoul of local authority, but Sadie, intrigued by him and captivated by his story, has grown sympathetic to his cause and complicit in his pushback against prejudiced accusations. Their mutual attraction is stymied when Stefan’s older brother, Joachim, who stayed behind, becomes embroiled in the resistance, and Stefan is compelled to return to Canada. Sadie, concerned for his safety, impulsively follows on a trajectory doomed by cultural misunderstanding and oncoming winter.

Let Evening Come

By Yvonne Osborne,

What is this book about?

After her mother is killed in a rare Northern Michigan tornado, Sadie Wixom is left with only her father and grandfather to guide her through the pitfalls of young adulthood.
Hundreds of miles away in western Saskatchewan, Stefan Montegrand and his Indigenous family are forced off their land by multinational energy companies and flawed treaties. They are taken in temporarily by Sadie's aunt, a human rights activist who heads a cultural exchange program.
Stefan, whose own father died in prison while on a hunger strike, promptly runs afoul of local authority, but Sadie, intrigued by him and captivated by his…


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