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  • The Wolf and the Woodsman

  • A Novel
  • Written by: Ava Reid
  • Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
  • Length: 13 hrs and 10 mins
  • 3.8 out of 5 stars (17 ratings)

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The Wolf and the Woodsman

Written by: Ava Reid
Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
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Publisher's Summary

In the vein of Naomi Novik’s New York Times best seller Spinning Silver and Katherine Arden’s national best seller The Bear and the Nightingale, this unforgettable debut - inspired by Hungarian history and Jewish mythology - follows a young pagan woman with hidden powers and a one-eyed captain of the Woodsmen as they form an unlikely alliance to thwart a tyrant.

In her forest-veiled pagan village, Évike is the only woman without power, making her an outcast clearly abandoned by the gods. The villagers blame her corrupted bloodline - her father was a Yehuli man, one of the much-loathed servants of the fanatical king. When soldiers arrive from the Holy Order of Woodsmen to claim a pagan girl for the king’s blood sacrifice, Évike is betrayed by her fellow villagers and surrendered.

But when monsters attack the Woodsmen and their captive en route, slaughtering everyone but Évike and the cold, one-eyed captain, they have no choice but to rely on each other. Except he’s no ordinary Woodsman - he’s the disgraced prince, Gáspár Bárány, whose father needs pagan magic to consolidate his power. Gáspár fears that his cruelly zealous brother plans to seize the throne and instigate a violent reign that would damn the pagans and the Yehuli alike. As the son of a reviled foreign queen, Gáspár understands what it’s like to be an outcast, and he and Évike make a tenuous pact to stop his brother.

As their mission takes them from the bitter northern tundra to the smog-choked capital, their mutual loathing slowly turns to affection, bound by a shared history of alienation and oppression. However, trust can easily turn to betrayal, and as Évike reconnects with her estranged father and discovers her own hidden magic, she and Gáspár need to decide whose side they’re on, and what they’re willing to give up for a nation that never cared for them at all.

©2021 Ava Reid (P)2021 HarperCollins Publishers

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    3 out of 5 stars
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A great beginning and end, with a rotten center

The first half of this I loved. It's an enemies to lovers tale with great pacing and a natural progression where the two main characters learn to care about one another as people and question the ingrained racism they were raised on.

And then... the story shifts into a tale of religious persecution and religion being strongly tied into community and personal identity and how that conflicts when your parents don't share the same religion. It really read, to me at least, about how finding Judaism (not ever called that in the book but its easy to parse out) finally provided Evike with acceptance. But not before she shows her complete lack of emotional maturity and repeatedly has lengthy outbursts where she verbally abuses her love interest. It's her intent to be cruel and cause him hurt and it certainly comes across.

Gaspard, however, is wonderfully written; a realistic portrayal of questioning and unlearning prejudice. He's clever, letting people ubderestimate him and waiting for opportunities. Which Evike constantly berates him for, preferring to launch herself and royal guards and getting imprisoned and in need of rescuing.

With the exception of Gaspard everyone is white. With the introduction of every new character you will undoubtedly hear the descriptor "pale". We get it, POC apparently don't exist in this world.

Gaspard is by far the best part of the book along with the narrator, but you unfortunately don't see much of him for a good chunk of the story. It picks up again in the last 3 hours but by then I couldn't care less about Evike or her village.

Despite all this if you still decide to give it a try know that there's a lot of religious glorification of self-mutilation. In case thats something that makes you uncomfortable.

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