This was one of my most anticipated releases for this year and I was over the moon when I found a copy in the mail one morning, thank you so much to the publishers and author for letting me have the chance to read the arc for this book.

“Red, I’d let the world burn before I hurt you.”

I wanted to go slow with this read and savour it a bit. It is a chunky read at over 400 pages but if you love a good slow burn romance then this will hit the spot. For the Wolf is an adult fractured retelling of Red Riding Hood with touches of other fairytales within such as Beauty and the Beast and Snow White but it is a very unique story. It is very descriptive and thus creates a very atmospheric read, a creepy forest with huge fairytale vibes, magic and a sweet slow burn romance between Red and the wolf. As I said before, I took my sweet time with this book, I didn’t want to rush and be greedy, I wanted to savour this one because you only read a book for the first time once. It was a beautifully written book and I felt enthralled the entire time I was reading it, I struggled to put it down at some parts and just had to read another chapter.

The First Daughter is for the Throne and the Second Daughter is for the Wolf. Red (Redarys) was born as a Second Daughter and her fate sealed before she even took a breath in the world. As a Second Daughter she is to be sacrificed with a hope that she will be enough for the Wolf to return the five captured kings. When her mark appears on her wrist and the pull of the Wilderwood is felt, Red is ready to go and almost relieved by it because she knows that she will be protecting all those that she loves – her sister mainly – from the horrors of the Wilderwood as well as the dangerous power growing within her. When the day comes that she finally meets the Wolf, he isn’t what she expected. The Wolf is a man and isn’t the enemy and there is a darker evil afoot in the Wilderwood and the only chance that she has of stopping this evil horror brewing is to accept each other’s help and face it together.

Honestly, you will not be disappointed if you pick up this book. A marriage of convenience, slow burn romance, a single bed and forced proximity – For the Wolf is all of this and more. It is a dark crafted story that takes a hold of you from the very first page. I seriously cannot wait for the sequel to this and it is not even out yet!

Review is up on my blog and Goodreads.
Thank you again!

What a disappointment.

I had high expectations for this book and it didn't live up to them.
The first 80/90 pages were interesting and I was loving the atmosphere, but after that the story slowly became boring and repetitive. Only towards the end something happened. I think the author focused too much on the setting and the dark atmosphere, penalizing the characters. They were flat and I didn't feel any emotions towards them. I also expected a different kind of story and maybe this is the reason why I didn't enjoy it as much as I hoped.

For the Wolf gave me all of the creepy fairytale vibes I hoped for, and then some. Though The Wilderwood is intended to be a scary, murdery, forest, I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to visit somewhere more.

Things I liked:
♥ Hannah Whitten wrote one of the most atmospheric books I’ve ever read and, though the writing was lyrical and gritty to the extreme, the plot didn’t drag for it as it so often does in atmosphere-heavy books. The balance between description and plot was spot on, and the pacing was well done.
♥ The Wilderwood essentially being a character in its own right was so incredibly done. You can’t help but empathize with it and I grew to love it as much as the human(ish) characters.
♥ I really enjoyed the dynamic between Lyra and Red. It was great to see a strong friendship between two unapologetically strong women. As characters, they were really well fleshed out and I really enjoyed learning about them (I also would very much love a book about Lyra’s history and how she came to be on The Wilderwood!)
♥ Can I just say the vibe? Because I really loved the vibe. I wasn’t expecting quite so much horror but I loved it. The blend of fantasy and horror worked SO well with the setting of The Wilderwood and it was sufficiently creepy.

Things I Disliked:
♡ I wonder if I went into this book with slightly off expectations in terms of romance because I found myself a little let down by it. There’s just wasn’t as much as I’d hoped for. The story was much more about Red and Eammon’s relationship with The Wilderwood than it was about their relationship with each other and, though I enjoyed that, I found myself feeling a little unfulfilled by the romance side of things.
♡ Though the book was predominantly from Red’s POV, there were ‘interludes’ from Neve’s. I didn’t dislike Neve’s POV, but the switch between them kept taking me out of the story since they were quite infrequent. I think if it had been a total 50/50 split, I wouldn’t have struggled with it, but the sporadic switching was a bit distracting for me.

Overall, this book was pure magic. As someone who feels most at home when surrounded by trees, For the Wolf felt a lot like stepping into paradise. And that ending… needless to say, I’ll be counting down the days until For the Throne is in my hand.

Content warnings, taken from the author's website: self-harm for magic use (cutting), parental neglect/emotional abuse, mentions of physical symptoms that might be triggering to those with emetophobia, anxiety/panic attacks, parental death, gore, mild audio/visual hallucinations, religious abuse, medium-heat romance (non-explicit)