Thank you to Tordotcom, the author, and NetGalley for providing this eARC in exchange for an honest review. This book will be released on March 14, 2023.
What else was she, really, but another animal body afraid of being alone in the cold?
To satisfy both her personal and scientific curiosity, Dr. Sean Kell-Luddon is pursuing perhaps her most engrossing research project yet: tech that will enable her to experience the mind of a wild wolf, and all the sensations and harrowing experiences that come with it. But even as Sean becomes obsessed with connecting to “her wolf” and—in particular—feeling her connection to the pack, the experiment begins to affect her mind and her objectivity deteriorates, further fracturing her already-fraying relationship with her wife.
I would have picked up this novella no matter what, since Lee Mandelo is an auto-read for me, but combined with this extraordinarily compelling premise? Oof, there was no turning back. Because who amongst us as not wished to be connected to the consciousness of a wolf and experience wildness without human hang-ups getting in the way?
This story is all about connection, in fact. And the lack of it. Reading it definitely made me want to examine and maintain the emotional connections I have, because the second major plot thread here is about a decaying marriage and the dangers of the routine of convenience that can spring up when you’re too swept up in your work to notice that you’re leaving your partner out of your life. Sean’s scenes with her therapist were excruciating to read, and every conversation where Riya and Sean argued, fought, or otherwise had some kind of conflict literally gave me chest pains because it was so achingly real.
All of Sean’s encounters with the wolves—both through the neural interface and those that occur later, in person—are so well-written and feel more true to wolf behavior than I expected; even the scenes that are filtered through Kate’s brain to Sean’s and then to text for us to read feel like a realistic way of depicting those thoughts and sensory experiences in a wolfish way that humans can still process. I loved that Sean’s time with the wolf pack seemed to enable her to almost… become human and feeling and communicative again. I was also fascinated by the implied effects on both her and Kate; I really would have enjoyed to see more of the tech and science part of that, had the page count permitted.
Lee Mandelo, you’ve done it again, and this time left me with so many thoughts about the ethics of neurological entanglement, questions about where Sean goes from here, and a wolf-shaped hole in my mind.
Gabriella Crivilare 