Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy

Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy is an engrossing novel about a woman, Inti Flynn, trying to reintroduce wolves to the Scottish Highlands after hundreds of years of them not being there. Her belief is that wolves will help the entire ecosystem come back to life. 

There with her twin sister, Aggie, Inti has mirror-touch synesthesia, where she feels in her mind sensations, including pain, that she sees happen to others. Aggie is a shell of her former self, communicating only with Inti, and often just barely, afraid to leave the house after the abuse she suffered at the hands of her husband. 

The locals in Scotland are generally against Inti's efforts to introduce the wolves, believing them a threat to their sheep and way of life. One of them, Stuart Burns, who had been beating his wife, Lainey, is found dead by Inti and she buries his body to try to prevent retribution against the wolves. She had developed a relationship with the chief of police, Duncan, becomes pregnant, and goes from believing it was Duncan who killed Stuart to thinking a wolf did it after Duncan gets attacked. 

Inti goes to try to find and kill the wolf and gives birth in the forest, with she and the baby almost dying from exposure, but wolves curled around them for warmth. Her sister then finds them in the forest, and after Aggie takes the baby to get her help, one of Inti's adversary locals comes and saves her. She later learns it was Aggie who killed Stuart, and almost killed Duncan, in an effort to protect her. 

The book feels very unique, with it wild, raw, and visceral, containing a huge connection with the natural world. It's also about love and loss and finding your way through pain in your world, and contains lovely language, with Inti "halved and doubled at once" after the birth of her child.

Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry

Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry is a novel that chronicles the story of Alice Scott, Hayden Anderson, and Margaret Ives. Ives is a reclusive heiress from a media family who lives on a small island in Georgia and engages both Henry and Anderson as potential writers of her biography. 

The book is told first person through the eyes of Alice, who develops a romance with Hayden, and they both see that there's more to Margaret's story, and why she brought them into her life, than she's revealing to them. 

Margaret tells Alice and Hayden that she'll meet with each separately over a 30-day period, and then decide who she wants to tell her story. During those thirty days, she speaks of family secrets, but it doesn't come out till the end that one of the secrets is that Hayden is her grandson. He doesn't know, as Margaret gave Hayden's mom for adoption. Rather than being about writing a biography, Margaret's plan was to get to know Hayden, and Henry's book about the two of them and Alice finishes nicely.

Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy

Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy tells the set in the future story of Franny Stone, who arrives in Greenland with the purpose of tracking the world's last flock of Arctic terns (deer, wolves, and bears are already extinct). 

The book is McConaghy's debut novel and seems to hit on many of the same themes and emotional constructs that she covers a few years later in her novel Wild Dark Shore, with the more recent book a bit tighter of a read. It felt as if McConaghy developed further her craft as a writer, something both logical and kind of inspiring.

Franny joins with the crew of the Saghani, and the boat travels to the Weddell Sea in Antarctica. Her quest is revealed as an attempt to fulfill a desire of her late husband, Niall, and it's a nice ending to the book.