Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves: A Novel - Hardcover

Long, Meg

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1250785065 ISBN 13: 9781250785060

Publisher: Wednesday Books, 2022

Synopsis

A lone girl determined to survive. The feral wolf she must learn to trust.

Only one chance to escape their icy planet: a race across the deadly tundra.

Seventeen-year-old Sena Korhosen hates the sled race, especially after it claimed both her mothers' lives five years ago. Alone on her frozen planet, she makes money any other way she can--until she double-crosses a local gangster.

Desperate to escape, Sena flees with his prized fighting wolf, Iska, and takes an offer from a team of scientists. They'll pay her way off-world, on one condition--that she uses the survival skills her mothers taught her to get them to the end of the race. But the tundra is a treacherous place. When the race threatens their lives at every turn, Sena must discover whether her abilities are enough to help them survive the wild, and whether she and Iska together are strong enough to get them all out alive.

As the girl and the wolf forge a tenuous bond and fight to escape ice goblins, giant bears, and the ruthless gang leader intent on trapping them both, one question drives them relentlessly forward: Where do you turn when there is nowhere to hide?

Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves is a captivating, breathless debut about survival and found family that delivers a fresh twist on classic survival stories.

About this title

About the Author

MEG LONG was born and raised in Louisiana and originally wanted to be a spy. Instead she somehow found herself teaching overseas in China and Malaysia before ending up in Colorado, where it snows entirely too much. She taught middle and high school for eight years before jumping to the tech industry as a content writer. When not reading or writing, she’s kicking things at her Muay Thai gym with her boyfriend, playing video games, or obsessing over Sailor Moon fanart. Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves is her debut novel.

Reviews

Gr 9 Up—Long takes readers underground and cross-country in her deadly, frozen sci-fi adventure. Sena was orphaned by the deaths of her mothers in a corporate-sponsored wolf sled race on Tundar, a planet with "electrically charged weather and never-ending ice." She is part "scavver," a mysterious ethnicity hated by the greedy "corpos" who have no regard for human or animal life. Sena is discontent, living her life stealing from tourists and skulking on the edges of the city's underworld, wanting nothing to do with the upcoming race. By chance she is pulled onto a team of researchers who know she could be an asset because of her background and scavver know-how. With her wolf companion, she reluctantly agrees to go along, knowing it could cost her life. The author creates a tale of darkness and intrigue with a tough narrator. The complex world of the novel's setting is a bit of a challenge to envision, and the planet's specific vocabulary can be an early stumbling block. However, once Sena's voice breaks through the pain of her circumstances, readers can't stop rooting for her. Human/animal interaction, heart-stopping race action, and lurking predators are evenly paced, while plot lines crescendo and converge. The blizzard scenes, ice collapses, and temperature drops may entice those who skipped Gary Paulsen or Jean Craighead George to go back and fill in reading gaps. Contains some strong language and violence. VERDICT A forceful debut for teen fans of danger, the outdoors, and the underworld.—Jane Miller

Edition details

• Publisher: Wednesday Books
• Publication date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1250785065
• ISBN 13: 9781250785060
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 368