Charlotte McConaghy

audio fiction (8.5 hrs) - Australian woman with extreme empathetic synesthesia (mentally experiencing the injuries and emotions of the people and animals that she sees, even if the animal is already dead) brings her (traumatized) twin sister to the Scottish Highlands where she works to reintroduce wolves into the wild (making enemies of the farmers and people who live there--one of whose murdered body she discovers one night in the snow), and flashes back to time spent with her sister, growing up with their dad in the vanishing forests of British Columbia, Canada and her sister's marriage to a truly horrible man.

CW/TW: domestic abuse, sexual assault, violence, murder, animal cruelty, depression/agoraphobia and PTSD/other mental health issues.

riveting and atmospheric narration with various and lovely accents -- I found that I needed to take short breaks when the story got intense, but at the same time was eager to get back to it..… (mer)

This is one that made me cry. There are some heavy topics included that I wasn’t really expecting. It is beautifully written and atmospheric and I loved the themes it centered around. I ended up reading it very quickly!

The whole endeavor of bringing wolves back into an ecosystem they have been erased from to bring a balance back and bring the trees, plants, and other creatures back, is so cool and something I had never given thought to before. But of course, this book isn’t just about the wolves and the ecosystem, It’s about the people and how we are the ones that can break and hurt each other in ways that an animal never could. The people of the village are worried about the predatory wolves coming after their livestock, way of life, their children, and themselves. But the main character of this book will stop at nothing to prove the innocence of her wolves and to instead turn the townspeople’s eyes inward on their relationships between each other after a person goes missing and everyone seems to believe it was her wolves.

A very raw, emotional story that will stay with me.… (mer)