A review by mepresley
Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

This was a lovely, heartbreaking novel. I was enchanted by its focus on the natural world and the human relationship to it, the ways that we have lost our interconnectedness and our wildness. Once There Were Wolves is to wolf conservation what The Overstory is to trees (--though there's a fair bit about trees in Once There Were Wolves as well.) The setting is captivating and richly explored.

Inti is a beautifully drawn character, and her relationship with Aggie is compelling. McConaghy did such a nice job

showing how Inti went from believing in the inherent good of people to trying to shut herself off from the world, and McConaghy's narrative brilliantly shows Inti's slow, hard journey toward beginning to heal in parallel to the slow, hard journey of the wolves beginning to restore the Scottish landscape.

 

It's another mark of the talent at work here that McConaghy seamlessly interweaves the wolf project, Inti and Aggie's history, Inti's relationship with Duncan, and

Stuart's disappearance/ death/ the police investigation.

Nothing feels out of place.

I saw another review that

expressed frustration with Inti's pregnancy plotline, suggesting it was unnecessary and sort of cheap. However, I think it was crucial to the story in terms of breaking down Inti's walls and that it was a perfect echo of the breeding wolves. In the epilogue, we see Inti and her daughter exploring a once-barren terrain as it begins to bud and grow as a result of Inti's wolf project; despite the incredible darkness of Once There Were Wolves, McConaghy builds to a cautious optimism for a better future.

Speaking of textual echoes, McConaghy really pulls off

Aggie's goodbye, a mirror of their father's own recognition that he was now broken in dangerous ways, cemented by Inti's vision of her father in the forest as she's fighting to survive and her subsequent conversation with Aggie about it.

 

Violence, abuse, and trauma are central to the narrative, so it's not a story for everyone, but  McConaghy manages to capture the true complexity of being human, firmly rejecting Inti's jaded claim that people are monsters, even as she shows some of the very worst things we can do to one another and our fellow creatures. Once There Were Wolves is a testament to the ways that--as Inti's father told her-- "all creatures know love."

I can't wait to read Migrations (2021) and Wild Dark Shore (2025).