16 thrilling science fiction and fantasy books to enchant you this June
By Lacy Baugher
June 2021 release: The Wolf and the Woodsman – Ava Reid
Inspired by Hungarian history and Jewish mythology, The Wolf and The Woodsman follows a young pagan woman with hidden powers and a one-eyed captain of the Woodsmen as they form an unlikely alliance to thwart a tyrant.
The story follows a twenty-five-year-old “wolf-girl” named Évike, who lives within a matriarchal tribe of warriors, magicians, and seers. However, their way of life has been deemed pagan by the religious king and his holy army of monster-hunting Woodsman, and every few years one of their number is snatched and taken to the capital to face an unknown fate.
But this year when the Woodsmen arrive to claim a seer, the Keszi matriarch instead hands over Evike, the only wolf girl without magic, as a sacrifice for the king. But when Évike and the Woodsman’s captain are attacked en route to the capital, the pair must form a tenuous pact, forcing them both to decide whose side they are on, and what they are willing to give up for a nation that never cared for them at all.
The official synopsis describes the story in much greater detail.
"In her forest-veiled pagan village, Évike is the only woman without power, making her an outcast clearly abandoned by the gods. The villagers blame her corrupted bloodline—her father was a Yehuli man, one of the much-loathed servants of the fanatical king. When soldiers arrive from the Holy Order of Woodsmen to claim a pagan girl for the king’s blood sacrifice, Évike is betrayed by her fellow villagers and surrendered. But when monsters attack the Woodsmen and their captive en route, slaughtering everyone but Évike and the cold, one-eyed captain, they have no choice but to rely on each other. Except he’s no ordinary Woodsman—he’s the disgraced prince, Gáspár Bárány, whose father needs pagan magic to consolidate his power. Gáspár fears that his cruelly zealous brother plans to seize the throne and instigate a violent reign that would damn the pagans and the Yehuli alike. As the son of a reviled foreign queen, Gáspár understands what it’s like to be an outcast, and he and Évike make a tenuous pact to stop his brother. As their mission takes them from the bitter northern tundra to the smog-choked capital, their mutual loathing slowly turns to affection, bound by a shared history of alienation and oppression. However, trust can easily turn to betrayal, and as Évike reconnects with her estranged father and discovers her own hidden magic, she and Gáspár need to decide whose side they’re on, and what they’re willing to give up for a nation that never cared for them at all."
The Wolf and the Woodsman is available on June 8.