The Tenderness of Wolves - Softcover

Penney, Stef

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1416571302 ISBN 13: 9781416571308

Publisher: S&s/ Marysue Rucci Books, 2008

Synopsis

Rare Book

About this title

Review:

"The Tenderness of Wolves stood out from a very strong shortlist. We felt enveloped by the snowy landscape and gripped by the beautiful writing and effortless story-telling. It is a story of love, suspense and beauty. We couldn't put it down." -- Costa Award Committee

"An original and readable mixture of mystery and history, with a good dollop of old-fashioned adventure." -- The Times (London)

"In suitable Jack London style for a setting in Canada's snowy wastes, wolves wander in and out of this suspenseful 19th-century epic, offering a leitmotif of constant unease. So begins what masquerades as a traditional murder quiz but quickly broadens out to encompass other lines of inquiry -- the mystery of two long-missing young sisters, the quest for a forgotten native American culture, the twists and turns of an unusual love story. Stef Penney is from Edinburgh and claims never to have visited Canada -- impressive, then, that the land of her imagination convinces." -- The Guardian

"A fascinating, suspense-filled adventure, a refreshing contrast to the conventional murder mystery." -- The Sunday Telegraph (London)

"The novel has a large canvas and . . . the story twists and turns. The Tenderness of Wolves is an entertaining and well-written adventure thriller." -- The Spectator

"Stef Penney, who in an even more unusual coup, won the first novel prize with a murder saga, The Tenderness of Wolves. The (Costa) judges said it made them feel "enveloped in the snowy wastes" of Canada in 1867. Penney, agoraphobic at the time, did all her research in the British Library." -- The Guardian (Manchester)

"An entertaining, well-constructed mystery . . . sexy, suspenseful, densely plotted storytelling . . . a novel with far greater ambitions than your average thriller, combining as it does the themes of Conrad's Heart of Darkness with Atwood's Survival, and lashing them to a story that morphs Ian Rankin with The Mad Trapper of Rat River." -- The Globe and Mail (Canada)

"A quite remarkable debut novel set in the snowy backwoods of Canada in 1867 . . . atmospheric and delicately written mystery." -- Birmingham Post

"Confident and complex portrait of 1860s Ontario. . . . Between twists and turns of plot, Penney evokes the land -- its shades of light and changes of weather, its marshes and treacherous waters. Rarely has winter seemed so febrile. . . . This one is a powerhouse." -- Books of Canada

"Penney's descriptions of the harsh landscape and the deprivation of living there are vivid and excellent." -- The Daily Telegraph (Australia)

From the Publisher:

Review for Tenderness of Wolves:
an intensely atmospheric murder mystery that consolidates its hold with
each serpentine contortion of the narrative and every new character that
drifts into its frame ... it is by dint of sheer imaginative heft that
Penney's immense tale allows one to feel the tundra's perishing chill in
the bones every bit as authentically as the wintry tableaux of Annie Proulx
... robust craftsmanship, cracking storytelling and cinematically evoked
panoramas that recall the finest westerns - Sunday Times, Pick of the Week

About this edition

• Publisher: S&s/ Marysue Rucci Books
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1416571302
• ISBN 13: 9781416571308
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 400