Synopses & Reviews
A captivating tale of humanity pushed beyond its breaking point, of family and bonds of love forged when everything is lost, and of a heroic young woman who crosses a frozen landscape to find her destiny. This debut novel is written in a post-apocalyptic tradition that spans The Hunger Games and Station Eleven but blazes its own distinctive path.
Forget the old days. Forget summer. Forget warmth. Forget anything that doesn’t help you survive in the endless white wilderness beyond the edges of a fallen world.
Lynn McBride has learned much since society collapsed in the face of nuclear war and the relentless spread of disease. As the memories of her old life continue to haunt her, she’s forced to forge ahead in the snow-drifted Canadian Yukon, learning how to hunt and trap and slaughter.
Shadows of the world before have found her tiny community — most prominently in the enigmatic figure of Jax, who brings with him dark secrets of the past and sets in motion a chain of events that will call Lynn to a role she never imagined.
Simultaneously a heartbreakingly sympathetic portrait of a young woman searching for the answer to who she is meant to be and a frightening vision of a merciless new world in which desperation rules, The Wolves of Winter is enveloping, propulsive, and poignant.
Review
“With elements of Cormac McCarthy's The Road and TV's The Walking Dead, the book gets off to a gripping start, blending visceral thrills with existential reflections...A stylishly written debut by a novelist to keep an eye on....Johnson's outdoor adventure novel is lifted by his command of natural settings and his understanding of family bonding under extreme duress.” Kirkus Reviews
Review
"An exciting, fast-paced tale...Johnson is an excellent storyteller; the novel is full of action, suspense, and plot twists as the resilient characters fight for survival in a harsh winter wilderness." Publishers Weekly
Review
"A chilling vision of a post-apocalyptic wasteland, where weather can kill and trust can be deadly. The Wolves of Winter is vivid, fast-paced, and raw." Jennie Melamed, author of Gather the Daughters
Review
“If Jack London had written a post-apocalyptic, coming-of-age thriller, it might read something like this. Curl up with The Wolves of Winter by a warm fire, and set aside a day, because this is great, absorbing fiction, with one of the most appealing protagonists I’ve ever encountered. It deserves the widest possible audience.” Blake Crouch, author of the New York Times bestselling Dark Matter and the internationally bestselling Wayward Pines Trilogy
Review
“This is fiction at its best: a gripping plot, imagery that arrests and illuminates, and characters that will haunt you well beyond the closing of the book. But what sets The Wolves of Winter apart is Tyrell Johnson’s masterfully deliberate lyricism. Every word has been vetted against all other possibilities. The result is a story that pulses from beginning to end. Here is prose that demands to be read. Read it.” Jill Alexander Essbaum, New York Times bestselling author of Hausfrau
About the Author
Tyrell Johnson is a 29-year-old writer and editor who grew up in Bellingham, Washington. He received his MFA from the University of California, Riverside, where he studied fiction and poetry. An avid outdoorsman, he currently lives in Kelowna, British Columbia, with his wife, two kids, and a Siberian husky. The Wolves of Winter is his first novel.
Tyrell Johnson on PowellsBooks.Blog
Usually when I sit down to write a story, I have an idea about a character and/or a plot. Those two elements are key in getting me excited about writing. However, when I sat down to write what would become my debut novel,
The Wolves of Winter, more than anything else, I had the setting in mind...
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