No tale had ever told her she could rely on the generosity of wolves, the eaters of grandmothers and lambs and piglets, the trickers of blue-eyed girls in carmine riding hoods.

But she had a debt to pay, and she would pay it.

2.5 stars. I'm so sad that I didn't enjoy this the way the first half of the book made me think I would. Because it was a really good first half! But unfortunately, the story really fell apart for me in the latter half, there were some storytelling choices that I just personally really dislike, some things that made me ??, and just generally, I didn't get the story that I thought I was getting from the synopsis.

First, the good. Really lovely writing and atmosphere. The little I know about the original story comes from Wikipedia, but I immediately fell in love with the setting, the story and the protagonists. It's rooted in the real world, but like any good retelling, there were glimmers of fairy-tale-esque details. I felt firmly rooted in the Siberian taiga. I flew through those first several chapters. Pyotra's first meeting with Volk, the chase, the push and pull, and kind of back and forth they had as they slowly began to learn about each other? I loved it. I would have adored it if the entire book was about them in the forest, developing a romance and understanding one another.

That isn't to say I dislike the actual plot of the book, which has to do with family and bonds and a rescue mission. What I didn't gel with was how it was told. Starting in Part Two, we began to get a lot of other POVs, and it felt super clumsy and strange, and I just wasn't as interested in those characters as I was in Pyotra and Volk. I rarely enjoy getting the villain's POV in books; letting the reader know everything the villain is doing while the heroes search them out is not a narrative choice I love. And that was what we got here. Not only the villain, but a bunch of secondary characters as well. I feel like if they were going to take up so much of the story, they should have been on page from the beginning, or we should have known of their existence sooner. As it was, it felt so tonally weird, to just have that shifts. I did end up liking a couple of those characters, so it wasn't all bad, but again: they took up so much space and time. A lot of the plot things were a bit muddled and confusing, and it lost me several times. I ended up being too confused to actually enjoy myself. :/

Romance makes up a big part of the story, though idk if this would actually be classified as a romance. Which is a shame; for me, at least. I really liked Pyotra and Volk's relationship, and I have a feeling I'd have enjoyed this more if it was a straight up dark fairy-tale romance. The fast pace of the relationship didn't really bother me (I tend not to mind insta-love in fairy-tale/fantasy settings) and they had some great moments. It did get a little... intense? I can enjoy shifter romances, but abo is my least favourite trope of all time, and while it didn't go there, it didn't not go there? Aha.

Definitely not a bad book; just not quite what I thought it would be, and not totally for me.

☆ Review copy provided via the author. Thank you!