Marta

TW: This book has violent and disturbing imagery and language. Read/listen at your own discretion Set to the backdrop of the Scottish highlands, Inti struggles to re-introduce wolves back to the wild. Within the first line of this book, we learn Inti has mirror touch synesthesia, allowing her to feel the pain she witnesses inflicted on other people and animals. Raised by two drastically different separated parents, Inti relies on her twin sister Aggie as her source of comfort and security. The timeline shifts from past to present, as we learn of their childhood and the struggles Inti is now facing in Scotland. The readers are questioning whether her mission to embed the wolves in a community that fears them will be successful. As Inti immerses herself with the ongoing dramas in the village, we see her passion to defend a woman who is being domestically abused. Through her friendships and rivalries, the readers witness her desperation at saving both this woman and the wolves. As the plot progresses in present day time, Inti becomes deeply involved in a murder that will unveil the truth about the twin sisters' unsettling past. If my brief synopsis grasped your attention, then this is precisely what happened to me when starting this audiobook. It wasn't hard to get fully invested in this because the narrator was phenomenal. She was able to quickly shift accents which added authenticity to the settings this story was taking place in. The pace of the story was fairly easy to follow in audiobook format. As for my overall feelings about this book, I think it was trying to tackle too many genres (mystery, romance, environmentalism). The romantic relationship in this book felt incredibly forced and too quick. Whereas the mystery of the murder was underdeveloped; the murder only served purpose to the plot in the ~50% portion and conclusion of the book. Inti and Aggie are both incredibly unhinged characters. The trauma that both of them faced is so evident based on their reactions to the situations in this book. At one point, the accusations that Inti was making weren't justified and didn't seem believable. Because this accusation drove a huge part of the plot, I felt that novel went downhill at this point. The book had incredible potential if it only focused on one key storyline; overcomplicating the plot took away from the sole focus on Inti and the wolves. The wolves were only really mentioned at what seemed like random points and only when the plot was stalling. I didn't think there was very good character development with Inti as well. I was left feeling that nothing really significant changed from the first page of the novel to the last, leaving me underwhelmed overall. However, the imagery, descriptions and style of writing were fantastic and were what kept me reading. (If these are things you look for and value in a novel, I think you would be incredibly impressed with this one).