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.

TRBS: Lastly, who are some of your favorite authors, and what books are currently on your TBR list? On my TBR pile: Iron Gold (Pierce Brown), Force of Nature, (Jane Harper), and The Gone World (Tom Sweterlitsch).” Ben Coes, New York Times bestselling author of international espionage thrillers featuring Dewey Andreas If you’ve read Essex Dogs this is the perfect follow on but if not don’t worry, you can read this as a stand alone, though i would recommend reading Essex Dogs first to get to know the characters and experience the horrors they’ve already encountered.

Explore more fiction features

TRBS: Parts of this book feel like The Hunger Games, other parts feel like World War Z or The Walking Dead. . . And while she has some similarities to Katniss Everdeen, Lynn McBride is a unique, great new character. Why did you make your protagonist a female, and who was your inspiration for her? War being what it is, especially 14th century war, not all the Essex Dogs from the first book made it out alive. The loss of some of their former comrades is something which haunts the remaining Dogs, especially Loveday, the group’s leader. And for Romford, an already troubled young man, the impact of one loss in particular manifests itself in a quite macabre way. In fact, all the Essex Dogs are brilliantly drawn characters. For those sensitive to such things, they are generous in their use of swear words, although perhaps not quite as prolific as the Earl of Northampton whose creative cursing is second to none. The author’s notes at the end are welcome and Jones informs us of the scarcity of sources on Calais and some of the proceedings covered in the book. He does a great job of filling in the blanks. In all honesty though, the characters are the stars of the show – these books would still be just as good if the places they march to and the names of the Kings and nations were completely made up. The characters shine strongly enough for it not to matter how closely Jones follows the history. It remains impressive all the same how he has adapted the gaps and the work he has put in with the sources available to make it feel genuine. Books must be made. They could make them out of paper, or vellum, so they would need some paper-fiber-making plant or sheep. Shepherding would make a lot of sense for the society described. A lot of the book takes place in a cold, high latitude area. They could use the wool for clothes, and eat the sheep in the brutal winters when crops didn't grow. The kingdom where the main character spends her childhood is portrayed as warmer and more active in trading, so they could say they'd found papyrus or abaca, and even (since we're worldbuilding here) claim that the southern latitudes are suitable for growing the plants. You’re dead, you asshole,” I said, gasping. “You’re a dead man.” My voice was weak and didn’t carry the anger I felt.

There was a b Spoiler! I'm going to talk about a place where a main character goes for a long period of time. You'll know she survives and grows up. That's all the spoilers there. The rest is talking about world building. Things weren't always this chaotic though. This mess happened gradually. As the days went by, less and less kids started showing up at Lynn's school. Then one day, the teachers didn't show up at all. Food became more scarce. Then it became time. Time to say goodbye to the life she knew in Chicago. Her and her family needed get away from the hell that had broken loose before it devoured them, too. I think fans of "The Hunger Games" would like this book, because Gwendolynn reminded me a bit of Katniss Everdeen.

Varis is chilling and apparently emotionless; though we understand him through his perspective, reading him through Shalindra’s too was a new experience. What if he actually can read minds? We don’t have any sustained conversation through his PoV, so perhaps we will never know. This element of mystery was potent, despite the fact we know what’s going on. I was torn; Varis is definitely evil. I wanted him to go down. But I didn’t, at all, want him to die. I fiercely wanted him to be redeemed. The ending was I suppose more realistic in that regard, but I was torn again—is it better for him to be spifflicated and alive or dead? Still, his sanity wasn’t fully gone, and that was satisfying. He remembered. Still, he had a rough time of it, this guy, and his unexpressed affection for Shalindra at the end was just a spark revealing what he’s needed all along. People. Someone, other than ghosts. His letting Shalindra go—to his own doom—was a really potent image, handled really nicely. He’s manipulated a controlled all his life, and despite his desire to contain her—he goes after her, we think she’ll be captured—but then we get her PoV, and he lets her go. I'm not sure where Volsky was going with this theme. Varis succumbs to the corrosion, yet his necromantic practice and his dark ambition to usurp rulership are not connected except by the catch-all of insanity. In fact, as a character he is at the center of paradox: a man twisted by dark magic yet ruling justly and progressively (by his own statement, so perhaps not a reliable statement), and who has improved the lives of the populace, yet does not have its loyalty or love. The Doctor says Henry III kept a polar bear at the tower. The Doctor caused a stir when he let it out for a swim in the Thames. The population clinging to the rightful heirs, despite the implication that it would mean returning to the line of hard rule, is something that feels very Russian, and perhaps is the connection to real-world history and culture. So naturally I was intrigued when I heard the plot of "The Wolves of Winter": a flu pandemic and world wars have wiped out much of humanity, but one young woman and her family are trying to survive in the wilderness of Canada.

After traveling from city-to-city, Lynn and her family finally managed to settle in the Yukon, a freeze-your-balls-off territory in northwest Canada. Only, not everyone survived the shitty journey. It's been over seven years since 23-year-old Gwendalynn "Lynn" has used electricity, eaten a Fruit Roll-Up, worn a bra—yup, those good ol' days are lonnnng gone. Everything is different now that the world is at war with each other. And just when you thought things couldn't get any worse... well, they do. A massive epidemic known as the Asian Flu is claiming lives faster than the blink of an eye. Somewhere, a gray jay woke and started chattering. The wind blew a dusting of snow from the ground that billowed like smoke in the chill morning air, and the sun, not giving a shit about my deer, was probably already contemplating its early descent.

Books by Dan Jones

What you'll find here is a great post-apocalyptic adventure set in a snowy Yukon wilderness....with freezing temperatures....a feisty smart-mouth protagonist....her expanded family....a "fat-face" creep neighbor, a mysterious man, his cool dog Wolf....and a fight for survival....literally. Thieving, asshole Conrad. Not only likely but, based on the boot prints and snakelike trails that his sled made through the bloody Rorschach marks in the snow, it was the only option. It had snowed early that morning, maybe an hour before the sun crested the hills. A thin dusting had already settled over his prints. He got up early, you had to give Conrad that much. Stealing didn’t seem like him, though. He was an ass, no doubt about it, but a thief? March 2016 - 31 March 2016 Scottish Singles Chart – Official Charts". Official Charts Company . Retrieved 4 July 2016. Tyrell Johnson’s The Wolves of Winter will be published by Simon and Schuster Canada on January 2, 2018.

TRBS: Since finishing this book, the one question I’ve been dying to ask you is will there be a sequel, and do you plan for this to be a long-running series?Cowles, Gregory (November 3, 2013). "Hardcover Fiction". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2021-09-18 . Retrieved June 3, 2014. 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 surface, she’s forced to forge ahead in the snow-drifted Canadian Yukon, learning how to hunt and trap and slaughter. 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. Society as we know it has collapsed. The big powes have nuked each other to near oblivion. Many have tried to escape, but then came something with no escape, no cure, trying to finish off those who were left. Lynn, and her remaining family members escape to the Yukon, form a small settlement, hunting and fishing to survive. In a post-terrorism, post-flu epidemic world, a young girl named Gwendolyn (but who prefers to be called Lynn) and her family make do trying to survive in the wilds of the Yukon during winter, after having emigrated from Alaska when the flu started catching fire. The flu doesn’t like cold weather, and Canada is safer than Alaska in that regard (believe it or not), so the characters are ex-patriots. Anyhow, everything is fine and dandy until Lynn runs into a fugitive named Jax during one of her hunts, and it turns out that Jax has superhuman capabilities and is, thus, being tailed out an outfit that goes by the short name Immunity, which is trying to find a cure for the flu. Basically, the shit hits the fan when Jax comes into the picture, and Immunity catches up with him. This puts Lynn’s family in a perilous situation where they must fight even harder to stay alive. You’re a prolific non-fiction writer. How has this helped shape your fiction and on the flipside, what would you say is the hardest thing about transitioning from penning non-fiction to fiction?