Once There Were Wolves

A wildly talented writer.

Emily St. John Mandel

One of those very rare, special novels that changes you as you read, which you do as slowly as you can because you want to savor it, except the pages keep turning furiously because the story is so thrilling and so powerful, with some of the best characters I have ever read. Charlotte McConaghy has cemented herself as a sure-thing, must-read writer for me.

Laurie Frankel, New York Times bestselling author of This Is How It Always Is

It is rare for a book to affect me so deeply I don’t want to talk about it, but truly, this is one of them. I just want to make everyone read it. Reading this felt intimate and life changing. It is quite literally magical, powerful and extraordinary.

Readings bookshop

Vivid and raw with feeling . . . despite the darkness and pain at the heart of McConaghy’s novel, it is not a bleak book. Instead, it bears within it an argument about the possibility of change . . . gripping and often very moving.

James Bradley, Sydney Morning Herald

This heart-pounding novel digs into the complex relationships between humans – and the creatures with which we share the natural world.

Newsweek

Suspenseful and poignant . . . [Inti’s] story unfolds as a meditation on the social and scientific consequences of influencing ecosystems, while reminding us that humans and animals alike can break our hearts.

Scientific American

McConaghy infuses Inti’s adventures with ravishing descriptions of the landscape and the ‘infinite mysteries of wolves’ . . . McConaghy's richly plotted tale of suspense and psychological insight poses provocative questions about predators and humanity's impact on Earth.

Booklist

Intense, emotional and rich with beautifully rendered prose, McConaghy’s novel is a powerful meditation on humanity, nature and the often frightening animalistic impulses lurking within us all . . . Another triumph for a rising fiction star, offering an intensely realized world for readers to get lost in.

BookPage (starred review)

Vividly realized . . . Gorgeously rendered . . . A story full of subtle surprises . . . This is a stunner.

Publishers Weekly (starred review)

An affecting novel that will stay with you.

CANBERRA TIMES

So damn good. A page-turner that makes you think and has a huge emotional impact.

Jeff VanderMeer, New York Times bestselling author of Annihilation (via Twitter)

Poetic . . . A lovely, gripping tale about a world that could be our own.

Kirkus (starred review)

A lyrical novel with a wild heart.

PopSugar

A moving, moody story by the author of the 2020 novel Migrations.

AARP

From the author of 2020's gorgeous Migrations comes a similarly earth-shattering tale of humanity's influence on the natural world.

Thrillist

Urges us to take a lesson from the wolves, and learn to lean on one another.

BookRiot

Blazing . . . McConaghy explores a core dilemma of the Anthropocene era: how to persuade people they should care about the fate of animals . . . Perhaps, she implies, fiction can do what science cannot: engender empathy and, subsequently, action. While McConaghy presents intelligent perspectives on the wisdom of rewilding, the book goes into deeper questions of epistemology . . . We are confronted by the limits of language every day. And as McConaghy shows in this stunning book, the limits of language lead us to the limits of empathy.

Lorraine Berry, Los Angeles Times