After angering a local gangster, seventeen-year-old Sena Korhosen must flee with her prize fighting wolf, Iska, in tow. A team of scientists offer to pay her way off her frozen planet on one condition: she gets them to the finish line of the planet’s infamous sled race. Though Sena always swore she’d never race after it claimed both her mothers’ lives, it’s now her only option.
But the tundra is a treacherous place, and as the race unfolds and their lives are threatened at every turn, Sena starts to question her own abilities. She must discover whether she’s strong enough to survive the wild – whether she and Iska together are strong enough to get them all out alive.
A captivating debut about survival, found family, and the bond between a girl and a wolf that delivers a fresh twist on classic survival stories and frontier myths.
[I received a digital arc for an honest review]
Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves is a YA fantasy debut by Meg Long . Filled with dangerous terrain, storms, monsters, betrayal, unexpected kindness, death, survival, and friendship.
Sena lives in a frozen land where she doesn’t belong as the daughter as a corporate racer mother and a scavver mother. Corporate racers are the wealthy of the planet who are greedy with the natural resources while the scavver’s live in the wilds respecting nature and taking only what is necessary to survive. Since her mothers perished competing in one last race in order to take them off planet for a better life, Sena was determined to never work with the racers or their wolves ever again. Bad decisions land her not only in the race but also fighting for her life, her newly acquired wolf and people who are turning into friends.
“I’m not ready to die yet. I didn’t come this far and escaped death so many times to give up on the side of a mountain.”
This one had me hooked from the beginning and that’s all thanks to our lead heroine Sena. She was fantastic and had my attention from the first pocket she picked. Usually I need romance in my YA fantasies, but this has zero, and I didn’t miss it at all. Sena with her wolf by her side was a strong enough character to carry the story. She starts off as a lone wolf herself and learns the meaning of friendship. There’s also a whole cast of solid side characters too along her journey.
In the end, Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves was a highly entertaining why a fantasy novel. I’ll definitely be looking out from more by author Meg Long in the future.
TW: violence, death, animal abuse + violence
OnceUpon_A_BookDream 