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The Wolf and the Woodsman

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The Wolf and the Woodsman

By: Ava Reid
Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

A dark, evocative and unforgettable fantasy debut steeped in Hungarian history and Jewish mythology, perfect for fans of Naomi Novik and Katherine Arden.

Stories don't have to be true to be real....

In her forest-veiled pagan village, Évike is the only woman without power, making her an outcast clearly abandoned by the gods. When soldiers arrive from the Holy Order of Woodsmen to claim a pagan girl for the king's blood sacrifice, Évike is betrayed by her fellow villagers and surrendered.

But when monsters attack the woodsmen and their captive en route, slaughtering everyone but Évike and the cold, one-eyed captain, they have no choice but to rely on each other. Except he's no ordinary woodsman - he's the disgraced prince, Gáspár Bárány, whose father needs pagan magic to consolidate his power. Gáspár fears that his cruelly zealous brother plans to seize the throne and instigate a violent reign that would damn the pagans and the Yehuli alike. As the son of a reviled foreign queen, Gáspár understands what it's like to be an outcast, and he and Évike make a tenuous pact to stop his brother.

As their mission takes them from the bitter northern tundra to the smog-choked capital, their mutual loathing slowly turns to affection, bound by a shared history of alienation and oppression. However, trust can easily turn to betrayal, and as Évike reconnects with her estranged father and discovers her own hidden magic, she and Gáspár need to decide whose side they're on, and what they're willing to give up for a nation that never cared for them at all.

©2021 Ava Reid (P)2021 Penguin Audio
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Critic Reviews

"Rooted in history and myth, The Wolf and the Woodsman is a stunning debut.... It will twine like a dark forest around your heart." (Samantha Shannon, Sunday Times best-selling author of The Priory of the Orange Tree)

"Gorgeously written and grimly real, The Wolf and the Woodsman quite literally took my breath away. It has the unsettling but compelling gore of Henderson's The Year of the Witching, the folkloric lilt of The Bear and the Nightingale, and the moral complexity of Seeing Like a State. I'm obsessed." (Alex E. Harrow, Hugo-award winning author of The Ten Thousand Doors of January)

"Assured and compelling throughout, and the worldbuilding is richly imagined, densely textured and endlessly delightful." (Katherine Addison, author of The Goblin Emperor)

What listeners say about The Wolf and the Woodsman

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    3 out of 5 stars
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Lost in the Woods

I had 3 false starts with this book before I finally finished it. Saskia Maarleveld is a narrator I really enjoy, and the story held all themes and mythology that make for a great fairytale. However, there is just so much lore and history that is barely sketched out that the world building doesn't come together, resulting in a story that feels forced along.

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I can’t finish this

Cannot be compared in same breath as anything written by Naomi Novik. Unable to lose any more hours listening to this

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Sounds like a good story, actually is an excellent one

A beautiful fairytale with overlapping religions/mythology and the perfect narrator.

Based on the blurb you may be expecting a good but average read but was so much better 😊

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Loved!

I absolutely loved this story! Hooked me in quickly, would have loved to delve in deeper to some of the fairytales told but it was fantastic just the same. Narrator was brilliant!

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