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The Tenderness of Wolves | 
 enlarge | Author: Stef Penney
Creators: Sally Armstrong, Adam Sims
Publisher: ISIS Audio Books
Category: Book
Buy New: £56.50
Rating:  116 reviews
Sales Rank: 2227494
Format: Audiobook
Media: Audio CD
Edition: Unabridged
Number Of Items: 14
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 7.2 x 1.6
ISBN: 0753127733
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780753127735
ASIN: 0753127733
Publication Date: July 1, 2007
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: In stock soon. Order now to get in line. First come, first served.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 111 more reviews...
Complex and atmospheric story of the Canadian Outback in 1860's November 21, 2008
stardancer (Cape Town South Africa)
I loved this story set in the Canadian Wilderness in the 1860's. Although it starts in the small settlement of Dove River, it ranges through the wild Canadian territories surrounding the town. The Wilderness itself becomes one of the main 'characters'- a force to be reckoned with by all those courageous or foolhardy enough to venture forth from civilization into it's unforgiving landscape. The plot is complex. There are many lives touched by the murder of a middle-aged French trapper named Francois Jammet. However, it is not only a murder story, it combines this with themes of love and longing. I could not put the book down, and was only disappointed by the 'hanging' ending. I am hoping that there will be a sequel - and SOON !!!
 A wonderful journey through the Canadian wilderness September 22, 2008
Parvati P. (London)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
`Tenderness of Wolves' is so well written, that for the first time in a very long time, I felt I was reading a book that richly deserved its prize (The 2006 Costa Prize, successor to the Whitbread). I was drawn in from the first page, savouring the writing and the descriptions. And for once, good writing did not get in the way of good story telling. The tale was gripping, although `Tenderness of Wolves' does not pretend to be a thriller.
That said, there was a sense of anti-climax after Mrs Ross finds her son, yet leaves him, in her search for the killer. For a while the story sags, as if Mrs Ross's new quest is a tangent or an afterthought, it simply does not seem as urgent as the quest for her son. Still, the narrative picks up again later, and even during the `slow' patch I enjoyed tramping around the Canadian wilderness, going where the author took me. It is a landscape that stayed with me well after I finished the book. Authentic or not, it certainly felt like a real place.
I liked the way that Mrs Ross's story was not the only plot-line, but that the book had multiple layers and a number of side stories (not quite sub-plots), which added texture to the book and gave it the feel of covering an entire community. I do agree with some of the other reviewers that the some characters were confusing but this was more because they were not individually distinct enough, than because there were too many of them.
The only irritant in a marvellous book was constant shifting between past and present tense. But even this could not detract from the pleasure of being in the northern wastes with Stef Penney.
Lovely description but story sags in the middle September 11, 2008
Janie U (England)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I enjoyed the way this book was written - in the first person when focusing on the main female character and third person with everyone else which clearly brings the reader to give more empathy to Mrs Ross and enables you to more understand her way of thinking than the other characters - many who remain strangers throughout the book.
I know there was a lot of criticism at the time the book won the award that the author had never visited Canada so was not in a position to write about it. I disagree with that as I think she has captures the harsh surroundings and the immature society that built up to deal in them. I haven't lived in Canada either so more research and historical context would have added nothing.
I found that the story slowed a little in the middle and it became quite hard work for a while but everything picked up again and I enjoyed the conclusion.
one good book you certainly can judge by it's cover! July 15, 2008
H. Shepherd (Northumberland, UK)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
The books I enjoy most are the ones that not only tell a moving and uplifting story but take you off to stange or exotic locaions. This is certainly true of Tan Twan Eng's beautifully crafted "The Gift of Rain"The Gift of Rain - the best thing I've read for an absolute age. But this one is really good too - although the setting couldn't contrast more starkly with the tropical lushness of 1930's Malaysia. This time the landscape is 19th century Canada, the white, windswept wilderness of the Ontario frontier in the 1860's. This is one good book that you certainly can judge by it's cover. If, like me, you like stories that take the reader on a journey, then this is for you. There are also believable characters and nicel interlinked sub-plots. Turn the heating up a notch or two first mind, or have plenty of logs ready for the fire if you have one. And give 'The Gift of Rain' a go too, if you haven't already - you won't be sorry.
 The Slenderness of Plot June 10, 2008
Bill (Cornwall, UK)
3 out of 7 found this review helpful
Raymond Chandler once famously said of thriller-writing, "When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand." Well, Stef Penney has her own remedy for spicing up her narrative: when things get dull, send another search party out into the snowy wastes.
Much of her debut novel is taken up with various combinations of searchers ploughing through the snow and ice, often in pursuit of other intrepid ramblers, or going round in circles like Pooh and Piglet. At one point there are 5 different groups of hunters and hunted lost amongst the snow drifts... and in the end you really don't care who gets out alive.
When her characters are not boldy going where others have gone before, then they sit around in trading posts and behave in ways that you might find surprising for 1867, the year in which the novel is set - we have homosexual relationships and cigarette-smoking feminists, and when they swear (which they do frequently) it's with true 21st century gusto. There are other anachronisms - looking for them will pass away the time until the next search party leaves the stockade.
Penney's writing is very much off-the-peg; she never bothers to come up with an original turn of phrase if a wellworn cliche will do just as well, and the whole book is in dire need of an editor's knife. The flimsy plot centres, for a while at least, on a rather far-fetched McGuffin - an inscribed bone - which in the end Penney herself can't be bothered to resolve, and she casts it aside in a manner which treats her readers with contempt. A very over-rated first novel, and one burdened with a meaningless title which presumably the publishers thought would help sell it to an undiscerning public. Looks like it worked.
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