Trigger warnings for gore, violence, abuse, amputation, torture, war themes, animal death, and cultural genocide and ethnic cleansing

In her forest-veiled pagan village, twenty-five-year-old 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. En route to the capital, most of the Woodsmen are killed and Évike is forced to rely on the one-eyed captain Gáspár. As they travel together Évike learns about why the King coverts pagan magic, how the throne is under threat from an illegitimate son, and how the fate of the throne can have disastrous affects on her village, and her father and his people who she never really knew.

After reading and loving the Winternight trilogy I thought I’d continue the wintery, forest, Eastern/Central European-inspired trend and finally read The Wolf and the Woodsman after recieiving it in a subscription box a couple of years ago. Unfortunately I didn’t enjoy The Wolf and the Woodsman as much as the Winternight trilogy, and perhaps I shouldn’t have read these stories almost back to back as it’s easy to draw some comparisons. (more…)