Here are 83 books that Wolf Winter fans have personally recommended if you like
Wolf Winter.
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I am drawn to books in which family history is never as simple as it first appears. I have always loved fiction about memory, silence, and the choices people make when they discover that something they believed about their past was not entirely true. As a novelist, I keep returning to these themes because I am fascinated by the way family stories shape who we become. I am especially interested in women who have to rebuild their sense of themselves when old explanations stop making sense. The books on this list stay with me because they do more than reveal secrets; they show what happens after the truth is known.
I first loved Rebecca for its atmosphere, but what stayed with me was something more unsettling: how completely another person’s version of the past can shape the present.
I remember finishing it and thinking about how easily we accept a story when everyone around us seems to believe it. As a writer, I keep returning to that idea.
Du Maurier showed me that an absence can dominate a novel as powerfully as a living character, and that what people refuse to say can matter as much as what they reveal. That has stayed with me in my own writing about memory, silence, and family secrets.
* 'The greatest psychological thriller of all time' ERIN KELLY * 'One of the most influential novels of the twentieth century' SARAH WATERS * 'It's the book every writer wishes they'd written' CLARE MACKINTOSH
'Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again . . .'
Working as a lady's companion, our heroine's outlook is bleak until, on a trip to the south of France, she meets a handsome widower whose proposal takes her by surprise. She accepts but, whisked from glamorous Monte Carlo to brooding Manderley, the new Mrs de Winter finds Max a changed man. And the memory…
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
I am drawn to books in which family history is never as simple as it first appears. I have always loved fiction about memory, silence, and the choices people make when they discover that something they believed about their past was not entirely true. As a novelist, I keep returning to these themes because I am fascinated by the way family stories shape who we become. I am especially interested in women who have to rebuild their sense of themselves when old explanations stop making sense. The books on this list stay with me because they do more than reveal secrets; they show what happens after the truth is known.
I loved The Thirteenth Tale because it made me distrust every comfortable version of a family story.
What stayed with me most was the way Diane Setterfield treats memory: not as a reliable record, but as something people reshape through fear, shame, love, and silence.
I was especially drawn to the sense that what is missing from a story can matter as much as what is told. By the end, I found myself thinking about the family stories we accept without ever asking who first told them, what they left out, and why.
'Simply brilliant' Kate Mosse, international bestselling author of Labyrinth
***
Everybody has a story...
Angelfield House stands abandoned and forgotten.
It was once home to the March family: fascinating, manipulative Isabelle; brutal, dangerous Charlie; and the wild, untamed twins, Emmeline and Adeline. But the house hides a chilling secret which strikes at the very heart of each of them, tearing their lives apart...
Now Margaret Lea is investigating Angelfield's past, and its mysterious connection to the enigmatic writer Vida Winter. Vida's history is mesmering - a tale of ghosts, governesses, and gothic strangeness. But as Margaret succumbs to the power…
I am drawn to books in which family history is never as simple as it first appears. I have always loved fiction about memory, silence, and the choices people make when they discover that something they believed about their past was not entirely true. As a novelist, I keep returning to these themes because I am fascinated by the way family stories shape who we become. I am especially interested in women who have to rebuild their sense of themselves when old explanations stop making sense. The books on this list stay with me because they do more than reveal secrets; they show what happens after the truth is known.
I love this book because it turns family history into something fragile, layered, and deeply personal.
What stayed with me most is how uncertain memory feels in the novel, and how much can disappear when people stay silent or simply stop telling parts of the story. I was especially drawn to the feeling that we can grow up inside a family story without ever realizing how much of it has been left out.
I also love the atmosphere of the novel, where places, objects, and old stories seem to carry emotional evidence of their own. It made me think about how much of ourselves we inherit without ever questioning it.
A special Sophie Allport Design limited edition of the moving and powerful mystery, The Forgotten Garden, the bestselling second novel from the author of The House at Riverton, Kate Morton.
A lost child . . .
On the eve of the First World War, a little girl is found abandoned on a ship to Australia. A mysterious woman called the Authoress had promised to look after her -but has disappeared without a trace.
A terrible secret . . .
On the night of her twenty-first birthday, Nell Andrews learns a secret that will change her life forever. Decades later, she…
Katie's Gamble is an unexpected, unique story about a young woman who's trying to support her younger siblings by keeping her family's confectionery shop open.
In order to do that, she has to take on her older brother, who's a notorious gambler in Louisiana. Additionally, she has to outsmart Rowdy…
I am a multi-published author of mainly Gothic, haunted house, and ghostly novels, novellas, and short stories. I love nothing more than exploring historic houses, ancient stone circles and places that are noted for having a certain atmosphere that hints – or, in some cases, screams – a macabre and interesting past. I am the person you will spot, hunched over an old gravestone peering at the much-degraded carving, searching for the name of its owner and a hint to their story. Why? I blame a childhood spent reading M.R. James.
Whenever people think of Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House springs to mind, and, for many years, I stopped right there. I was wrong.
In my opinion, We Have Always Lived in the Castle is actually a much better book – better in terms of plot and characterization. In telling the story of the decidedly disturbed and disturbing Blackwood family and their sinister home, Shirley Jackson explores small-town prejudice as well as the creeping impression that, while something awful has already happened, there is much worse to follow.
Merricat is a character I identified with. She is strong, determined, and a fighter. With the odds stacked so firmly against her, she needs to be. Jackson’s last novel is, for me at least, her greatest.
Living in the Blackwood family home with only her sister, Constance, and her Uncle Julian for company, Merricat just wants to preserve their delicate way of life. But ever since Constance was acquitted of murdering the rest of the family, the world isn't leaving the Blackwoods alone. And when Cousin Charles arrives, armed with overtures of friendship and a desperate need to get into the safe, Merricat must do everything in her power to protect the remaining family.
Although I’m an academic by training, I secretly struggle with heavy nonfiction tomes (think: massive histories of long-ago countries). I start reading these with the best intentions but quickly get sleepy, bored, or both, setting them aside and instead picking up a novel, which I’ll immediately devour. That’s why I love memoiristic, hybrid work so much: writing that pairs the intimacy of fiction with the information buffet of nonfiction, where you learn without realizing you’re learning. These books feel like a conversation with a close friend who is intelligent, thought-provoking, and passionate about various subjects—what could be better than that?
Let me start with a confession: I don’t care about wolves—or at least, I thought I didn’t until I read this book. Now, I’m mildly obsessed. I see a wolf on screen or mentioned in the news, and my adrenaline spikes; I feel excited. I now know about OR-7, the wolf that migrated from the Wallowa Mountains in Oregon to the southern Cascade Range.
I discovered that wolves are family animals, despite what we may have thought, and that they average a speed of 5 miles per hour. And somehow, learning all this was fun because this book wasn’t actually about wolves at all; it was about the idea of wolves—in history, in culture—and therefore, actually about so much more, including the author herself. I couldn’t put it down.
For fans of Helen MacDonald’s H is for Hawk and Mary Roach, Erica Berry’s WOLFISH blends science, history, and cultural criticism in a years-long journey to understand our myths about wolves, and track one legendary wolf, OR-7, from the Wallowa Mountains of Oregon
OREGON BOOK AWARD WINNER * Shortlisted for the 2024 Pacific Northwest Book Award * A Most Anticipated Book of 2023: TIME, Los Angeles Times, Vulture, Salon, Bustle, The Rumpus, Financial Times, Reader's Digest, LitHub, Book Riot, Debutiful, and more!
"Exhilarating." ―The Washington Post
"Wolfish starts with a single wolf and spirals through nuanced investigations of fear, gender,…
I have been passionate about soulmate animals since I was a child. Each of these books represents a different facet of the extraordinary capacities of the animal-human relationship. In my books, Soulmate Dog and The Lunatic, I underscore that interspecies love stories are worthy of being told, and that to love also means to lose and grieve. In my recent novel, The Lunatic, one of the protagonists is a German shepherd who communicates silently with the human protagonist as a result of their deep companionship. These books on my list helped fuel my passion for the notion of soulmate animals who think, who love, and who break all conventional boundaries.
I have loved this book for decades since my parents read it to me out loud when I was a child, because the extraordinary story about the unbreakable bond formed between a man and a formidable wolf in the Canadian wilds has stayed in my heart and mind. Their anecdotes of vulnerability, trust, and love defy all odds.
I hoped that one day, I, too, would find my own soulmate wolf, and I think of their story often.
In 1970, a young Indian who introduced himself as Gregory Tah-Kloma beached his canoe near the author's Babine Lake campsite in the backwoods of British Columbia. Night after night by the campfire, the young Indian told the remarkable story of his devotion to a pack of timber wolves and their legendary female leader: Nahani, "the one who shines." This extraordinary tale has touched many readers over the years with its moving portrayal of the friendship between Greg and Nahani. Certain names and locations have been altered, but the facts of Gregory Tah-Kloma's adventures with Nahani are as he told them…
Papyrologist Lisa Emmer's world flips when the Sûreté detains her at her Metro station with news of the savage murder of the esteemed Paris historian Dr. Raimond Foix, her friend and mentor in the study of ancient documents.
Horrified, Lisa finds clues at the crime scene left behind for her…
I have a thing about bunnies! My first plush toy was a rabbit named Boing Boing and I had a pet lop-eared bunny named Br’er. The first book I wrote in my series was The Night Before Easter because I wanted to write a story for kids who love bunnies and Easter - like me! When I was a child I also liked to read books by Beatrix Potter and hope to one day visit her house in England.
It’s a silly rabbit book! Kids will love that the bunnies are trying to disguise themselves from what they think is a hungry wolf. But it turns out the wolf isn’t looking for bunnies to eat. The lone wolf wants friends. Great read-aloud story! The illustrations – part art and part cartoon – are bursting with energy and saturated color. Don’t forget to read the funny signs in the artwork as well.
A laugh-filled, bunny-filled new picture book from author-illustrator dream team Tammi Sauer and Ross Burach, just in time for Easter baskets and spring celebrations.
From the author of Wordy Birdy and the illustrator of The Very Impatient Caterpillar comes a hilarious picture book about a super-sassy bunny who tries to save himself and his cotton-tailed pals from a wolf by conning him into thinking they are not bunnies, despite the fact that a.) they are very clearly bunnies and b.) more and more (and more!) bunnies keep showing up. How many bunnies are in this book? A LOT!
I love the mystery and wisdom of wolves. When I began researching wolves to write my own wolf stories, I discovered they had not only keen instincts but shocking intuition. I read stacks of nonfiction books on wolves and wolf stories, too. I toured a wolf conservation. One of the wolves, a white wolf, looked me straight in the eye and held me there. A wolf’s eyes do more than see you. Her communication was almost a prayer. I went home and wrote a short story about a white wolf—"Sky Wolf, A Fairy Tale." And then I wrote a wolf novel. I’m in love with wild wolf spirit.
Reintroducing the wildlife into their natural habitat to flourish. Wolves! These gray wolves that are transported back into the wild changed my perspective about the beastly wolf vs. the gentle wolf who truly understands the wilderness within.
Inti Flynn is a young woman and the protector of wolves. She does this remarkably by giving all her love to them. And is love returned? Yes. I became fascinated and envious to be loved by a wolf after reading this beautiful story.
A wild and gripping novel about one woman's quest to reintroduce wolves to the Scottish Highlands at any cost.
Inti Flynn arrives in the Scottish Highlands with fourteen grey wolves, a traumatised sister and fierce tenacity.
As a biologist, she knows the animals are the best hope for rewilding the ruined landscape and she cares little for local opposition. As a sister, she hopes the remote project will offer her twin, Aggie, a chance to heal after the horrific events that drove them both out of Alaska.
But violence dogs their footsteps and one night Inti stumbles over the body…
I’ve always identified as a weirdo and felt misunderstood, which led to lots of wasted time “trying to fit in.” As an adult, I’ve learned to love myself for exactly who I am, but it took a lot of work and self-reflecting. Looking back, I realize there were actually many kids who felt the same way as me and we just never managed to connect with each other! Finding people who “get you” is an important task—but I truly believe self-love and self-acceptance is the greatest goal for all humans. I hope my books speak to the “weirdos” and non-weirdos a like, and encourages all readers to love themselves just the way they are.
Homer the dog is sure he’s a wolf inside! I can relate. All of us have a fierceness inside of us and following Homer on his journey to embrace his inner wolf was funny and inspiring. And I was especially inspired to see that Homer’s wolf journey wasn’t easy (learning to eat raw meat took some time). I often take a long time to embrace being brave, and I love that message for younger readers.
Meet Homer, a dog who heads to camp to live like a wolf! Here’s the perfect book for the legions of kids out there who love dogs and funny books.
Homer is a dog . . . but he also secretly fancies himself part wolf. So when an invitation to attend WOLF CAMP (“Where every dog can live as a wolf for a week”) falls out of his kibble bag one morning, he’s determined to go. After his people finally agree, Homer boards the bus bound for Wolf Camp, along with fellow campers Trixie and Rex. They’re greeted on…
A poisonous maiden, a Daoist sex cult, and a violent insurgency.
The polyandrous Yan family in China's rural Shaanxi Province takes in two carpenter brothers. When one brother is convicted of murder after killing their neighbor in a dispute, a constable threatens to expose the family's rumored polyandry and extorts…
Once upon a time, I came to the realization that I had no idea what my parents were thinking, much less anyone else. This has turned into a life of repeated musing over how much I do and don't understand about other people. More recently, my mother's death brought to light the many different ways family and friends remembered her, with joy and pain, loss and wariness. I chose this topic for the list because these books help highlight and explore the mysteriousness of family and memory and how a person can be whole and complete and sure of what they've lived through, only to turn and see a new angle never before recognized.
I admire so much the time, patience, and thought put into Firekeeper. She's not a human wolf; she's a wolf in a human body with human limitations, faced with frustrations in trying to shift between the body-oriented language of wolves and the verbal-focused language of humans while staying true to herself.
I'm also in awe of how Lindskold layers in so many different cultures and approaches to power and how characters see themselves.
This is a book (and a series) I reread regularly, and I always find some aspects I hadn't noticed before. All that, and great characters on top. Firekeeper, of course, but I also respect and admire Derian, Elyse, Blind Seer, Sapphire, and so many more.
Born human, raised by wolves, Firekeeper seems the last person anyone would choose to back as a candidate for heir apparent to a royal throne. Nonetheless, when Firekeeper and her wolf “brother,” Blind Seer, travel with Earl Kestrel’s expedition into the kingdom of Hawk Haven, the earl thrusts the wolf-woman into the midst of the heated intrigue surrounding who will be chosen as the heir of elderly King Tedric.
Soon, the only thing the competing factions seem able to agree upon is that Firekeeper is an enemy. Firekeeper may not be able to read or write. She may struggle to…
