Once there were wolves by Charlotte McConaghy

Members agreed you need to check your credulity at the door with this novel but they liked several aspects of it.

The plot follows Inti Flynn's arrival in Scotland to lead a team of biologists who are reintroducing 14 wolves into the remote Highlands, ultimately to renew the original forests, under attack from large populations of deer.

The wolves are freed from their cages into the wild quite swiftly, apparently to avoid any delays from opposing forces and without much communication with the local farmers and the rest of the community. Those animal lovers among you who are fearful of being subjected to wolves' deaths at the hands of cranky farmers, strap yourselves in.

Inti has travelled to Scotland with her twin sister, Aggie, who has been deeply traumatised by something in their shared past and does not speak to anyone or leave their home. So, while you may think the book is all about the reintroduction of the wolves, following a similar history to the wolves project in Yellowstone and other places, at its heart it is actually about dysfunctional families and domestic violence.

There is also a potential crime when a grazier disappears a few chapters in. This is of course initially blamed on marauding wolves. However, the missing person, Stuart, is not liked by many people, being a cranky farmer in debt, who hates the introduction of the wolves, drinks too much, bullies people and takes things out on his wife. But being a small rural town, people have grown up with each other, know the good and bad about each other, and have been romantically attached to each other - so there's a few candidates who could have bumped this guy off for a number of reasons. That includes Inti's romantic interest, the local policeman, Duncan.

It can't be Inti who has done away with Stuart, however, even though she'd like to do it for the sake of Stuart's battered wife, Lainey, and her beloved wolves. That's because, as we find out from the first chapter of the book, Inti has a psychological condition, which apparently really exists in some people, where she sees another's pain so empathetically that she can physically feel it in her own body. So if she shoots a tranquillising dart into an animal, for example, she will feel it herself in her leg and faint from the pain and shock.

She and Aggie also have a mutual protective dependency on each other. Their parents' marriage has failed and the girls spend periods of time growing up with Mum (a case-hardened police woman) and Dad (who is into subsistence living in the woods) in two separate countries (Australia and Alaska). Despite the fact that Aggie eventually marries a neurosurgeon the girls continue to live together and a series of disturbing events unfold.

Members loved the information provided by the author about the lives of wolves and the way she describes the natural world but found events depicted in the plot unbelievable (some said ridiculous, others, fantasy) and could not connect with the characters.

Members recognised that the author is a passionate environmentalist but thought a major flaw in the plot was the apparent lack of meaningful negotiation between the community, the authorities and the environmentalists before, during and after the release of the wolves. This was seen as highly unlikely in this day and age, as much for the sake of the animals as for the rights of the landowners.

While the book was considered easy enough to read or listen to most of us gave it 7/10.

Who is Charlotte McConaghy?

Charlotte McConaghy is an Australian writer who grew up in Armidale and began writing at 14.

She has a Graduate Degree in Screenwriting and a Masters Degree in Screen arts and has worked in script development for film and television for a number of years.

She has published five books, mostly in the paranormal/romance/fantasy genres but is best known for her novel, Migrations, which was a TIME magazine Best Book of the Year and the Amazon.com Best Fiction Book of the Year in 2020.

She lives in Sydney.