Once There Were Wolves


Once There Were Wolves is a 2021 novel by the Australian author Charlotte McConaghy.
It was the winner of the 2022 Indie Book Awards Book of the Year – Fiction.

Synopsis

Inti is the head of Cairngorms National Park's Wolf Project in Scotland. The project aims to release 14 wolves into the park as a part of their rewilding project. The project is met with opposition from local farmers who worry about their sheep flocks. Then a dead body is discovered and Inti begins to suspect a local policeman of the murder.

Critical reception

Writing in The Newtown Review of Books Ann Skea was impressed with the novel: "Charlotte McConaghy draws the reader into the lives of her characters, and realistically coveys the closeness, secrets, fears and mutual support of a small community where people have grown up together and know each other well...Ecology, climate change and self-sufficiency are casually woven in as underlying themes, but it is the creatures – human and wolf – that are the heart of the story."

Publication history

After the novel's initial publication by Hamish Hamilton it was reprinted as follows:
The novel was also translated into Swedish, German, Finnish, Dutch and Danish in 2022, Greek in 2023, and French in 2024.

Awards