Book Review: The Wolf Road by Beth Lewis

When you can find no fault in a book, you have to award it all the stars! The Wolf Road – a dark tale that is beautifully written – makes for a great literary debut with a fantastic dystopian-mystery feel to it.

From the inside cover:

Trapper told me once that your head can protect you if something truly bad happens. It can make black spots and empty places what should be filled with horror.

Since the Damn Stupid turned the clock back on civilization by centuries, the world has been a harsher place. But Elka has learned everything she needs to survive from the man she calls Trapper, the solitary hunter who took her in when she was just seven years old.

So when Elka sees the Wanted poster in town, her simple existence is shattered. Her Trapper – Kreagar Hallet – is wanted for murder. Even worse, Magistrate Lyon is hot on his trail, and she wants to talk to Elka.

Elka flees into the vast wilderness, determined to find her true parents. But Lyon is never far behind – and she’s not the only one following Elka’s every move. There will be a reckoning, one that will push friendships to the limit and force Elka to confront the dark memories of her past.

My Thoughts:

This is of those books that gives you a taste of the ending at the beginning, so immediately you want to read on, curious to know what happened, how did we get to this point?

Set in a post-apocalyptic world, after the “Big Damn Stupid” set everything back to zero. Trapper raised Elka for near on 10 years. He taught her everything she needed to know to survive in the wild, she thought of him as a father. When she finds out Trapper is wanted for multiple murders, life as she knows it crumbles, and she journeys into the wild to find her real parents. But Magistrate Lyon and Trapper are not far behind her and neither are the memories of her past. Secrets, lies, truth, memories – everything done in the dark will eventually come to light. This book is Elka’s story, told in her words.

“Trapper was my family even though I didn’t know a sure thing about him…

Trapper was the kind a’ family you choose for yourself, the kind that gets closer’n blood.

He was what I chose and I chose wrong.”

There’s something about this book that pulls at your heart strings, Lewis writes so beautifully, Elka becomes a real person, throughout this read you experience Elka’s emotions right along with her. I have a love for dark yet beautiful writing – it creates this need in me to read on; Lewis did that boundlessly in this book, I was gripped, emotionally attached to Elka so I needed to read on, I needed to know that she was going to be okay. This compelling feeling is one that, up until now, I had only experienced when reading a book by Kate Hamer, and one that I didn’t expect to feel when I picked up this book. But, oh my, has Beth Lewis announced herself in the literary world! This is not a fast-paced read, more an addictive one. The dialect Lewis chose for book was spot on, it created this eerie dystopian atmosphere. Coupled with the perfect mystery plot, this was an exceptional read.

One part of this book I really enjoyed was when Elka met and befriended Wolf, he was, in some ways, her guide and protector while she was in the forest, but most importantly he was her friend. We also meet Penelope, she travels The Wolf Road with Elka for a while and the two girls form a beautiful friendship – two girls from two different walks of life with two completely different personalities, each running from the pain of their past.

What needs to happen now is, you need to read this book immediately, if you’ve read this already, you can surely agree that this is a must-read! To experience the writing style and fall in love with Elka. Have you ever wanted to jump into a fictional world and rescue a character, to take away their pain and offer them the love and care they so clearly need? Elka was so desperate for this affection, she was blind to what was really going on when she lived with Trapper. As you read this book, you will admire Elka’s strength but so clearly see her vulnerability, and enjoy her flecks of her humour.

This book is available to buy now from: Amazon UK