FOR THE WOLF

RELEASED 17 JUNE 480 pages | Paperback/ebook/ audiobook

Author Hannah Whitten

Publisher Orbit Books

Wolves run through fairy tales, flashing a tooth here, a tail there. But if you pick this up expecting to see familiar motifs popping up, you’ll be disappointed – or possibly pleasantly surprised.

There are glimmers of fairy tales: second-born princess Red is to be sacrificed to the Wolf in a magical forest in the hope that he’ll return the world’s captured gods. Your mind can’t help turning to Little Red Riding Hood and Beauty And The Beast. But Hannah Whitten isn’t telling either of those tales. She’s not telling the tale of Snow White and Rose Red, either, although with Neve (the older princess) dressed all in white, and Red in scarlet, it’s hard not to feel echoes of that.

Why are we talking about tales untold? Because without those glimmers of something more, this would be a fairly standard fantasy tale with monsters and magic safely locked away in another dimension, religious leaders covertly manoeuvring to free them, and a few plucky outcasts trying to prevent it, all with a sprinkling of good-looking young people to satisfy the romance-thirsty.

Those flashes of older stories give you a sense that something is going on beneath the mundane surface. That half-recognition and thwarted expectation weaves a magical spell – though like all fairy magic, it’s ultimately illusory. Miriam Mcdonald