One of the best pieces of fiction I’ve come across that deals with the practicalities of fighting climate change. Inti and her team of re-wilding specialists have a tense dynamic with the local residents of a remote corner of Scotland. While Inti sees the greater good that is served by an influx of wolves forcing the deer population to move around and allow reforestation efforts to thrive the locals view the presence of wolves as an imposition removing their right to self-determination thorough agriculture. While Inti is admirable and easy to relate to she is also at times headstrong and lets the confidence she has in her own rightness act as cover for her to do some pretty shady things. Once There Were Wolves explores some fascinating ideas about the impact of every creature’s presence and it is beautiful from start to finish.

My one and only frustration with the book is, admittedly, due to my own literary pet peeve. Inti is an empath which I roll my eyes at anytime an author makes this choice for their protagonist. I usually find it to be an entirely unnecessary plot device and this was no exception. To be fair, it isn’t a supernatural phenomenon for her; she suffers from a rare but (according to a quick google search) real condition called Mirror Touch Synesthesia where someone can see something painful and reflexively imagines that phantom pain within themselves. It is, in my opinion, entirely unnecessary to Inti’s character but it only took me out of the plot a couple of times and never for very long.