**2.5 stars**

There is so much going on in the Wolf and the Woodsman that I wish the book had cut some of the events in the first 190-ish pages as they felt very repetitive. The book ramped up in the latter section and I did stay up at night to finish. However, I am still quite conflicted about how to rate this book. The FL didn't end up growing on me all the way even though I emphasized a lot with what she had gone/was going through. The ML had very little character development and it would have been very appreciated if we had been able to get into his thoughts a bit. The romance seemed to come out of nowhere tbh and some events were quite head-scratching to me eg overall fate of the turul.

My favorites were Bierdna, Szabin, and Tuula and I would have loved if they had featured a lot more.

Wow, so this was nothing like what I expected. A powerless woman is sacrificed to her enemy, and on her way to the city that will be her end, gets sidetracked, learns about love and loss, hatred and intolerance, and how sometimes, the merging of faiths will overcome the truest and most beautiful of evils.

Originally posted on Just Geeking By.

One of the books that I heard about in the Del Rey UK 2021 Virtual Showcase, The Wolf and the Woodsman caught my attention immediately as a pagan because this is a book where the main character is a pagan! That in itself is highly unusual and the more I learned about this book, I realised it was just the tip of the iceberg. I had to get my hands on it and the lovely people at Del Rey were kind enough to provide me with a free copy in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to Rachel Kennedy for the opportunity to review The Wolf and the Woodsman!

The Wolf and the Woodsman is a novel that delightfully discusses and interrogates the idea of what is belief, what happens when it changes and when that change is forced on society through the use of fantasy. Évike and Gáspár are thrown together in a situation where they must choose what is more important; their beliefs or their survival. Is it worth dying just to cling to those beliefs? At first Gáspár, a deeply devout follower of the Patrifaith is willing to do just that, whereas Évike's pagan beliefs allow her to be a little bit more lenient. It isn't her gods that call for her to avoid getting close to Gáspár it's the blood on the hands of the Woodsmen, the Holy Order of soldiers that have claimed so many of her fellow wolf-girls for the King's pleasure. Can she let go of her anger, of her disbelief in the hypocrisy of what Gáspár believes?

As the pair travel together they realise that there is something more important than the rift between them. Gáspár's brother threatens the safety of both their homes and of Évike's father's people, the Yehuli, an indigenous religion under persecution. Nandor's hatred for everyone outside the Patrifaith threatens to consume the entire nation in a religious war just as the Kingdom fights one at their border. No one would be spared, including Gáspár, the son of a foreign queen, and those loyal to him.

Let's be clear about one thing; this is a fantasy novel but it talks about some very real and horrific topics. Fantasy is the lens in which Reid uses to examine real past historical events, particularly the brutal acts of a newfound patriarchal faith that washed away all other traditions and belief systems with blood to establish itself as the dominant religion. As with the Patrifaith in The Wolf and the Woodsman, it did so by intertwining religion with state and crown until it controlled everything. Modern societies still bear many hallmarks of those actions today. The dire consequences of such an act are optimised through the character of Nandor, Gáspár's brother, a figure who has the power and presence to unit people in their hatred and faith to ensure that their country will be cleansed of anyone who does not follow their faith. It isn't an idle threat or a promise, it's a fact, with the blood of as many Yehuli as he can get away with already on Nandor's hands.

The Yehuli already live in persecution, already fear the sound of the soldier's footsteps when they celebrate their holy days and festivals. Likewise, the pagans have been cowed into conversion, forced into hiding or live under constant threat of one of their girls being taken by the Woodsmen. Neither community is a threat to the Patrifaith. They just want to be left to live their lives in peace, to continue the traditions as their ancestors have done for generations. It's a sentiment that I think a lot of us can appreciate. Even more so we recognise the oppressing forces who will not just let us do that, who demand that we should do things their way, that what we do is wrong just because they do not understand it.

Reading The Wolf and the Woodsman I saw in Gáspár a need for some controlling outside force to guide him, to show him the right way, likewise the same with Évike's father and the other Yehuli. Their scrolls were integral to their belief. In comparison, the pagans have a fully oral storytelling based system and that is enough for them. They do not need ritual or the written word to reinforce their faith.

While The Wolf and the Woodsman is a brutal depiction of three religious communities and their differences, it is also the story of their similarities. While stories are the foundation of the pagan belief system each one has stories and this is just one overlap that Évike recognises as she learns more about them. Even as the Patrifaith shuns pagans she sees things that they do that aren't that different to the villagers she's left behind, not that they would ever admit it. Then there's the blatant hypocrisy of a king who wants to use pagan magic to consolidate his power yet shuns the pagans of his country. I appreciated that Reid did not shy away from the stark truth, showing every repulsive act horrifically without any fairytale pretence.

Such as the relationship between Évike and Gáspár, which people have claimed was not romantic enough. If you read this novel and your takeaway from it was that there was not enough romance then you seriously missed the entire point of The Wolf and the Woodsman. I hesitate to even call it "romance" because romance conjures up a certain ideal and Évike and Gáspár's relationship is one born from two people being thrown together in a stressful, horrible situation and realising they care for one another. They are running for their lives, trying to survive monsters and weather, and are the only people who can stop the genocide of two peoples. There's no time for romance. It's real life, and real life is messy, quick and whatever you can get when you can get it. I honestly would have lost a lot of respect for Reid if she had made a point of making it all fluffy and romantic because it would have made a mockery of everything else in the novel. ( )

Following a young woman from a pagan village, Evike, and her journey as she is forced from her home village to a one-eyed Woodsman; this story is a culmination of how various faiths and mythos clash.
This is a complicated one to rate as it is both fantastic and awful at the same time. A first for me reading wise, Reid is masterful at world building which is often the hardest part about writing a fantasy world, she brings in many real-life reflections of religions from pagan beliefs to Jewish mythos and Christian practice in a way that is well-done and still unique and interesting to the world that's been created. The depth of the world felt tangible and flowed in an easy way that kept me intrigued. On the other hand, the actual story and plotline were, quite frankly, awful. A hundred pages could have been cut from convoluted plot progressions and it is almost sad to say you could remove almost all of the actions of the main characters and end up with the same ending and outcome of the story.
So for world-building and those interested in reading fantasy stories inspired by real-life religious mythos and history than the book is great, but if you're looking for a good story this is not it. This is Reid's first book, and she certainly has a skill to support a great story once she figures out how to plot one. ( )

Reid draws on Hungarian history & Jewish folklore in this richly detailed debut. Outcast Évike is the only woman without magic in her village, & when soldiers demand a sacrifice for the king, the village betrays her—but the Captain isn’t what he seems.