Note: The title of this book has been translated into English by me for the reading comprehension of this blog's viewers as the book itself isn't available in English (yet). The original title reads Der cerborgene Schatten.
This one was on my TBR for a while! I finally got a copy! Spoilers ahead!
Hundi is a young she-wolf who befriends a wolf from a rival pack known as the Shadow Wolves. Her mother, the pack leader, finds out about this, accuses Hundi of betrayal, and casts her out of the pack. Hundi now has little choice but to join the Shadow Wolves. At first things seem good at this new pack, but as time progresses Hundi starts to wonder where her loyalties really lie. Is it with the Shadow Wolves, her new home where her friend is, or her blood-related pack where her mother and sister live?
This I just thought was a neat little book. It's short and sweet, doesn't get overly deep and lore-heavy, but it knows exactly what it is and I respect it for it. Not every book needs to be a deep epic lore-filled multi-part series. This is a short novella, but it is still using this format effectively by telling a compelling story in its short page-time.
The plot was simple but engaging and I especially liked the character of Hundi and seeing her conflict of loyalty, which was definitely the most interesting part of the story. Hundi has a complicated relationship with her blood relatives, but life at the Shadow Wolves doesn't turn out to be all that it's cracked up to be, either so it makes total sense for her to have a conflict of who to be loyal to here. She does have a good bond with her sister, but let's not forget that her mother threw her out of the pack over only a minor infraction.
Hundi's relationships with the characters around here were also interesting. They're not super fleshed out or anything (the book is too short for that), but there is enough of interest here to keep the reader engaged and some dynamics do end up changing in interesting ways.
If I do have a criticism, I guess it is that I wish that Hundi's friend, Nika, who was the reason she got banished, didn't turn out to be bad in the end. It'd have been a tad more nuanced if this was the case, I think. They do have a nice friendship in the earlier chapters so to see it all go to waste during the climax was sad.
I also think that this author read Dorothy Hearst's The Wolf Chronicles and enjoyed it, because there's two characters who share a name with TWC main characters, Kaala and Ázzuen. Not that I mind or anything, but it was interesting to see as a huge fan of Heart's trilogy.
So yeah, definitely on the shorter and simpler side, and things could've been a tad more nuanced and fleshed out, but for what it is I really enjoyed it. I won't go out of my way to recommend the book as the author has stated on Instagram to no longer like this book and prefer if people didn't buy it, but I had a good time with it. And, just to be clear, I didn't see the author stated that on her Instagram until after I'd already bought and read the book.
Rating: 3.5/5
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