Published: June 7, 2022
Publisher: Orbit Books
Series: Wilderwood #2
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 496 (Paperback)
My Rating: 3.0/5.0
A copy of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Synopsis:
The First Daughter is for the Throne
The Second Daughter is for the Wolf…
Red and the Wolf have finally contained the threat of the Old Kings but at a steep cost. Red’s beloved sister Neve, the First Daughter is lost in the Shadowlands, an inverted kingdom where the vicious gods of legend have been trapped for centuries and the Old Kings have slowly been gaining control. But Neve has an ally–though it’s one she’d rather never have to speak to again–the rogue king Solmir.
Solmir wants to bring an end to the Shadowlands and he believes helping Neve may be the key to its destruction. But to do that, they will both have to journey across a dangerous landscape in order to find a mysterious Heart Tree, and finally to claim the gods’ dark, twisted powers for themselves.
For the Wolf was a strong favorite in 2021 and left readers with somewhat of a cliffhanger ending. Red embraced the Wilderwood’s power, but her sister Neve was taken by one of the Five Kings into the Shadowlands and she appeared to be dead. Of course she wasn’t dead as Neve is the main character of this installment. I was very much looking forward to learning more about the Shadowlands and its dark denizens and I was not disappointed in that regard!
The Shadowlands are crumbling and with their fall, the remaining four kings will be released to rain destruction down upon the world. Neve and Solmir (who is not all that bad, but perhaps holding something back) form a tentative alliance to foil their plans and return Neve to the living world. I’ll be honest, I had my fingers crossed for Neve to be a glorious dark goddess of destruction and for a whole, satisfying romantic arc with Solmir. My wishes were not exactly granted… and for that I will be forever saddened. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the story but I didn’t connect to Neve and Solmir in the way that I did with Red and Eammon. I liked that Neve’s story was one of the strong bonds of sisterhood and working through her demons and it wasn’t focused just on a dark and broody hot guy.
The scenery was great – giant bone mountains, the corpses of almost-gods littering the land, and the dark mirror of the overworld aspect. The denizens of the Shadowlands were terrifying too. I mean, one of them has the corpse of his lover preserved and another was like, part spider. So many cool things that theoretically should have made me love this book, but it simply never clicked with me. I hate to say it but I just didn’t like Neve or Solmir that much. They were a bit cold and flat and this book struck me as more plot driven than the first book. Everyone, even Red and Eammon had a task to complete and the focus was far more on the steps needed to complete those tasks than any developing emotions.
Overall, it was a good story but I preferred the first book. There was a new character added in, which ultimately made sense at the end of the book, but it felt like she was there purely to make certain things work more smoothly. She could have been removed entirely and I wouldn’t have missed her. Despite my somewhat lukewarm feelings towards this, I actually really liked the ending because it was bittersweet and not a Disney-esque happily ever after. Without a doubt I will be picking up future books by Hannah Whitten because she has a brilliant imagination and the world she’s created in the Wilderwood series is way cool.
Powder & Page 
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