Lynn McBride was 16 years old when the world ended. Seven years later, she and her family have managed to scrape out a life in the harsh snowy world of the Canadian Yukon far from the dangers of the cities. Their peaceful but lonely existence is upended, however, by the arrival of a stranger who brings trouble in his wake. As family secrets come spilling out, Lynn must choose between hiding from the world with her family, or risk going south to seek the remnants of civilisation.
Tyrell Johnson's first novel, The Wolves of Winter is a YA post-apocalyptic adventure tale with some science fiction elements and a clunky romance thrown in. The prose is sparse - sometimes a little too sparse for my liking - and the plot rattled along nicely but the standout element of this book for me was the setting. The cold snowy silence of the Yukon was a constant presence in the book and really highlighted how remote and isolated Lynn and her family are. Tyrell Johnson is an outdoorsman in Canada and he has obviously used his knowledge and experiences to craft an authentic tale of survival in a tough and unforgiving environment.
However, I didn't click with the characters and they were honestly quite forgettable. Lynn could have been - should have been - an awesome character; she can hunt, she can track, she knows how to survive in the wilderness, she's watchful and introspective... but she lacked the emotional complexity and inner fire that would have made her an unforgettable heroine. Likewise, her relationships with her mother, brother and uncle had the potential to be fascinatingly complicated, but they were largely superficial.
At it's heart, The Wolves of Winter is a dystopian survival tale with an interesting setting that makes an absorbing read but probably not one that will linger long in the memory.
Recommended For: Fans of YA dystopian fiction
Read On: Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel is another after-the-end novel with a young female protagonist.
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