I didn't read the description of this book too closely before submitting my Netgalley request. (Basically all "a girl and her [fill in the blank animal]" stories are a hard yes for me.) So i was surprised and delighted to find this was Sci-Fi.

The book doesn't learn super hard into that element, (although I'm guessing a sequel will) but it does add some interesting color to the story. Even though Sena's on another planet, one can still relate to doing things in the cold and snow, where dangerous animals may be lurking about.

(There is one predator in particular I would have liked more description for--as it doesn't seem to compare to anything Earth--but that's a small quibble.)

Overall, I thought this book was fast moving, engaging, and heart-wrenching. The relationship between Sena and the wolf, Iska is beautifully developed, and the stakes for their quest are very high. (The big bad is indeed an ominous character who seems perfectly happy murdering both people and animals.)

Sena is basically alone in the world and lives on a very dangerous planet. As she's the hero, you don't expect HER to die in this story, but you do believe (rightly so) that SOMEONE might not make it to the end alive. I also enjoyed the secondary characters in the story (the Scooby Gang of sorts that ends up rallying around Sena.)

Overall, this was an incredibly solid YA book, that was indeed, YA in tone-not gory, sexy, or scary, just lots of action and peril, involving diverse, believable characters in unique relationships, on a world that's easy to imagine. If these characters go onto adventures in another galaxy in future books, I'd be happy to go along for the ride.

I received an ARC of this book courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 stars.

Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves had an interesting premise. Sena lives on this tundra-like planet where they have a yearly dog-sled race that is more dangerous than what you’d expect here on Earth. She’s an orphan after her mothers both died in a race five years ago and since then, she’s vowed to never participate or race. A series of unfortunate events means she’s forced to race or stay and be murdered by the underground Kingpin after she’s stolen and freed his winning fighting wolf.

But it took half the book for the action to start. The pacing was so slow, I nearly gave up before the race even began. Once the race starts, the story flew by. Sena and her wolf Iska do everything they can to survive and finish, and this story felt like it was more about the relationships Sena forms with her wolf and the racers she’s with and less about the actual race.

But that’s not entirely a bad thing, as I grew to adore some of the characters Sena meets and befriends. Overall, this was an intriguing read, but I almost missed the interesting parts as the pacing was so slow to get the story moving.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the review copy!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves follows Sena, a girl that’s just trying to earn enough money to escape the ice covered planet she grew up on. I don’t know that I can say I liked or disliked Sena. I think I liked her by the of the story but she did so many self destructive and just plain dumb things. Her story was compelling for sure though. So, even when I was rolling my eyes at her actions, I was interested to see what she would try next. I liked the supporting characters as well but I felt like we didn’t really get to know them very well.
The world was fascinating. Sena lives on a frozen planet where mining and the yearly races attract the wealthy and other corporations. The draw of the planets natural resources and the money to be made from them was a really interesting one. I think the negative light the corps were painted in was very much a comparison to modern society and I liked that. Aside from these, the setting was stunning with the frozen rivers and lakes and the woods full of deadly predators. But most of all, I was interested in the culture of Sena’s ama. One of Sena’s mothers left her home of the native population to be with Sena’s mom. But she still taught Sena about the culture she was raised in and I liked learning about that culture the most.
Overall, this was a pretty nicely paced story. Long did a great job of showing things instead of telling them to the reader (though there were things told, mostly bits of backstory here and there). I think I will probably read more by this author.

Sena's mixed race heritage has only brought her grief on the brutal ice world of Tundar. She's determined to save enough to get off-world to a more hospitable planet where no on will know her heritage, no matter how many pockets she has to pick to make it happen. But her thieving puts her at odds with Boss Kalba, a local gangster, who tells her she has to heal his fighting wolf or he'll make her pay.

Getting involved with wolves is the last thing Sena wants to do, as it reminds her of her mothers, who trained them before their death in Tundar's brutal annual race, where sabotage and deceit claim as many lives as the natural predators. But when Sena runs into trouble with Boss Kalba, the wolf, Iska, saves her. Together, the two escape, determined to survive - together, even if their path leads them to the very race Sena has always fought to avoid.

Sena's fiesty determination to survive and come out on top puts her up there with YA heroines like Fable (of the Fable series) and Jude (of the Wicked Prince series). Along the way, she picks up an unusual set of allies who help her and Iska navigate the brutal terrain of the race. But the race claims its victims still.

The bond between Sena and Iska the wolf brings a special magic to the book. I loved watching them learn to trust each other and risk their lives to save the other.

Tundra's obviously modeled off of our Artic, with its vonemwolf sled races, corporations mining exocarbon and vicious predators. But they also have technology that exceeds ours and goblin monsters that do not resemble anything in our Artic.

This action-packed book will be nearly impossible to put down, as Sena and Iska never back down from a fight. I was hooked, waiting to see if they would find safety at the end of the race.

Thank you to Netgalley and Wednesday Books for the advance review copy of this book.

Sena is the daughter of a racer and a scavver. After her mothers died during a race, Sena decides to stay away from racing. No matter how hard Boss Kalba pushes her.

This is a story filled with love, loss, danger, uncertainty, and more. The world building is beautiful and interesting as we follow the world through Sena's eyes. Her determination to be her own person and save the remaining family she has pushes her to join a scientific racing team.

The racing aspect doesn't start until halfway through, but there is a lot of action before that. The writing style itself is beautiful. Some lines evoked emotions in me that caused me to take a break, while others spurred me to read on. I cannot wait to read more from this author!

** Thank you to Wednesday books for the advanced copy for an honest review **

Thrown into an ice filled tundra world, Sena is a gambler who angers some local gangsters by stealing and trying to flee. She has a chance to make all right when some scientists offer her a chance of a lifetime, or so she thinks. Her and a wolf named Iska must make the cold journey through the icy world in an Iditarod race, for a chance to make it off the planet. But it’s a dangerous place and at every turn there unforeseeable threats that make Sena question everything she’s worth.

Well buuurrrr! This book definitely makes you feel the icy world around you. You’re thrown into this Balto meets Wild Fang story, that has you on the edge rooting for Sena and Iska. The underworld system they live in reminded me that scene from Demolition Man(Yes I’m showing my age here lol) where there’s a while underground city of people living. In this book it’s merely to get away from the icy storms, but still that was such a cool concept to me.

The story is descriptive and competitive and really good for a debut book. I think what fell flat for me was it read as a young ya almost middle school.. which isn’t bad, but it sort of threw me. It take a while to get into and the action really doesn’t come about until the second half, which I’m glad I stuck to because I felt myself slowly putting the book down and almost DNF’ing. The main character and the world really saved this book for me. It was a really thought out story and creative, just be prepared to wait for that action to come in.

** Thank you to Wednesday books for the advanced copy for an honest review **

Thrown into an ice filled tundra world, Sena is a gambler who angers some local gangsters by stealing and trying to flee. She has a chance to make all right when some scientists offer her a chance of a lifetime, or so she thinks. Her and a wolf named Iska must make the cold journey through the icy world in an Iditarod race, for a chance to make it off the planet. But it’s a dangerous place and at every turn there unforeseeable threats that make Sena question everything she’s worth.

Well buuurrrr! This book definitely makes you feel the icy world around you. You’re thrown into this Balto meets Wild Fang story, that has you on the edge rooting for Sena and Iska. The underworld system they live in reminded me that scene from Demolition Man(Yes I’m showing my age here lol) where there’s a while underground city of people living. In this book it’s merely to get away from the icy storms, but still that was such a cool concept to me.

The story is descriptive and competitive and really good for a debut book. I think what fell flat for me was it read as a young ya almost middle school.. which isn’t bad, but it sort of threw me. It take a while to get into and the action really doesn’t come about until the second half, which I’m glad I stuck to because I felt myself slowly putting the book down and almost DNF’ing. The main character and the world really saved this book for me. It was a really thought out story and creative, just be prepared to wait for that action to come in.

Oh ny gosh, I adored this book. The relatiomshio between woman and wolf is fantastic. As an animal lover I relate 100%. Thank you to netgalley for this advanced copy. I will be singing this stories praises!!

Oh wow, this was really great! I honestly wasn’t sure how much I’d like this but I was so pleasantly surprised! The beginning starts juuuust a tad slow and I wasn’t completely sold on the worldbuilding, but it quickly picked up and the world really is fun and unique. Sena was a great narrator. Her relationship with Iska is definitely the heart of the story and it’s so, so good. I also really loved Remy!! The plot was really entertaining and I completely blew through the second half because I could not put it down. Really enjoyed this one!

Trigger warnings for animal death/cruelty, violence, gore, death of parent

"𝑪𝒐𝒍𝒅 𝒊𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒏𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒇𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒔. 𝒀𝒆𝒕, 𝑭𝒂𝒔𝒕 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒐𝒍𝒗𝒆𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒎."

An orphan girl rescues a fighter wolf on an ice planet and must escape the local gangster and his cronies by doing a dangerous and infamous sled race. What a pleasant surprise this book was. I had no idea that this was (what seems to me) a Red Riding Hood Retelling. It's a beautiful story about resilience, determination, friendship, finding oneself, survival and grief. I can tell that Megan Long did her research with dog sled racing and did a magnificent job with her vivid descriptions of the ice planet. I absolutely loved Sena, the main character of the story because she is strong and doesn't give up. Once you get to the actual sled race the story is packed full of action and adventure. The story was left open a bit and so I do hope this becomes a series.

DNF @ 24%
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Thank you to the publishers and Net Galley for giving me a copy of this book! This is my honest review, all views are my own.
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In all honesty: this is a solid book. If I were to rate this book right now, I would say this is in the 3 star range. I enjoy the worldbuilding (the planet, the race, and the corpos alike), and the main character has an interesting history that I would like to explore more. However… it took way, WAY too long to hammer in the points about the Big Bad Boss Man and the Hostility of the planet and Sena’s Intense Hatred for the Race that killed her mothers, and it didn’t jump into the action like I expected. It took the first quarter of the book to even reach the incident that forces Sena to run away and survive the race. To put it bluntly: I feel as though I got spoiled for the book simply by reading the blurb. I was waiting for the worldbuilding to end and the action of the race to begin… or, at the very least, for me to begin liking the main character more. When Sena seizes the opportunity to seriously piss off the Boss Man, I actually groaned in annoyance and stopped reading. After being warned/threatened multiple times that she should not get on this guy’s bad side, she still goes and pulls this shenanigan. I get why—she’s in a desperate situation—but the aforementioned spoiler-blurb gives away that her plan doesn’t work, and it really puts a damper on the reading experience. Additionally, multiple reviews have cited that the pacing doesn’t get better, with the oh-so-important Race not starting until 55% in. I just don’t think I have the patience or attention span at this point in time to read this book, unfortunately… I might try to pick it up again at some point in the future, but just not right now.

I really liked the race aspect of this story.. its dog sled racing to the max.. Theres sabatoge, and winter storms, and crazy preditory animals that make this race super dangerous.. Its pretty fast paced, especially once the race starts, and with all the things that can kill you during it popping up all over the place it really keeps you on your toes wondering how they are going to survive whats going to happen next. Sena doesn't trust anyone or anything so I really loved seeing start to trust the other people in her team, and really bond with Iska. (Iska is my favorite)

while the race itself was very quick and engaging, it took a while to build up to it. i also did not realize there was no romance, which is a bummer. i’m sure meg long has it in her though

Warning: human and animal deaths.

I enjoyed the story, but struggled to get through it. It was so slow and I didn’t find the build up to the race helpful. The action starts about halfway through and it can get pretty gory. Sena and Iska were a good pair, but I never liked Sena; something about her didn’t sit right with me.

I received a copy of this book via NetGalley; I’m reviewing it voluntarily.

Thank you to Wednesday Books and Netgalley for allowing me to read an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves by Meg Long is a fast paced novel about wolves, found family and survival.

SPOILER ALERT: There are animal deaths (and people deaths) in this novel, so if you can't handle that, I would recommend that you skip this book.

However, if you can take the violence and death, I would highly recommend this book. Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves follows Sena, an orphan who is trying to get off of her planet of Tundar, which is an ice planet that comes to life every year for a race where teams of people race on sleds pulled by wolves (sort of based on the Iditarod race except with genetically engineered wolves). Sena shuns the race world even though she grew up training wolves as her mothers died running the race. She turns to a life of pickpocketing and thievery to try and earn enough chits to buy a ticket off of her planet and start a new life. Unfortunately, she crosses the wrong people and is reluctantly made to train an injured wolf.

I'm a huge dog lover, so this book was right up my alley. I was interested in the characters, the wolves and the plot. There are sci-fi elements weaved in there and dangerous creatures, people and obstacles to deal with on the race. I was eager to find out what happened and had a hard time putting it down once I started.

I enjoyed it and will probably read it again!

Thank you to Wednesday Books, the author, and NetGalley for providing this eARC in exchange for an honest review. This book will release January 11, 2022.

Maybe surviving the race is more than just skill or prep or luck. Maybe, the team you race with matters more than anything else.

I'm so excited to review my first 2022 book, which—despite the fact that it's mid-November—I have already been looking forward to for months! In fact, I've put off reading it for a while, because I just didn't want to have it end. But I'm so glad that I finally picked this book up, because Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves has everything I love: a frozen landscape (that reminds me of the societal structure of Tatooine but set on Hoth), lively and interesting side characters, and, well. Wolves!

And the fact that it is very much inspired by the Iditarod and the Great Race of Mercy. It even has characters named after some of the mushers from 1925, which I personally thought was a nice tribute. But more than that, this book really encapsulates both the beauty and danger of sledding, and the depth of the relationships between mushers and their dogs. While Sena starts out reluctant to care for Iska, the injured fighting wolf she's commanded to heal, their relationship gradually blossoms to the point where not only do they save each other, they'd die defending each other. Because racing is as much about trust as it is about getting to the finish line—and in this world especially, you won't manage the latter without the former. I really cannot say enough good things about the arc of Sena and Iska's bond.

One aspect of the book that I do wish had been developed or at least seen more in the story was the history of the scavvers. For the most part, details about the planet Tundar are dropped in without a ton of explanation and you're able to figure out what things are through context, but I would have loved to have more details about the scavvers, who are this group of people who live outside of corporate influence, seem to have preserved older, manual ways of doing things, may have come from a different planet originally (this is one of the parts I'm unclear on), and were participants in a war against the people who distrusted them and their way of life. They do play a larger role towards the end of the book, but since one of Sena's mothers was a scavver and that is a factor in her ability to survive out on the tundra as well as a reason why many people in town don't trust her, I would have liked to learn a bit more about them.

Something else that I've seen mentioned in other reviews is the fact that the treacherous race itself doesn't start until about halfway through the book. I get the frustration with that, since the marketing copy does seem to make it sound like the race will take up a much larger chunk of the story. But honestly, I loved all the buildup that leads to that point, because Sena and Iska's relationship and their backstory is just as significant to the narrative as plotty bits like the race. Without the emotional weight of the reason for Sena's avoidance of the race, her being forced into joining it just isn't as resonant. Plus, I personally feel like there's only so much a writer can do to make pages and pages of racing interesting, even if there are... incidents on the road. So I really didn't mind the delayed start at all.

But that is not to say I didn't love the scenes that took place on the trail. There are so many harrowing moments, of course, given that Tundar is a planet where everything outside is trying to kill you, including the trees, but my favorite by far is a moment that (like the others) is borne out of sheer determination and will to survive, and shows just how much Sena has grown since the opening of the book. It's just as much about the wolf as it is the girl and it is so, so powerful.

I feel like I got exceptionally lucky with Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves. It felt like it was written just for me with how well it captured the things I love most about its source of inspiration. If a sequel happens to pop up, I will gladly follow Sena and Iska to another planet, because I know they won't steer me wrong. I can't wait to add this gorgeous book to my collection!

Thank you to Wednesday Books for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves follows Sena, a young thief and orphan, trying to get away from a local gangster. When she escapes with one of his prized fighting wolves, she goes to help a group of tourists entering the treacherous race, promising them guidanceo n her ice planet in exchange for enough money to get off planet.

This was so captivating, and honestly, so much more than I could have imagined! It was a sublte sci-fi setting, almostl ike an Alaskan wilderness with with a big, sprawling city and mythic beasts hiding in the woods.

With themes of found family and survival, this was fast-paced, intriguing, and an easy one-sitting read! No romance for the romance fans, but it will tug on your heartstrings all the same! I truly fantastic read perfect for a cozy winter afternoon.

I was instantly sold when I read the description for this book. You have a harsh terrain, a variety of deadly animals, genetically modified wolves and a (senseless) race for riches. I loved the main character Sena, She is a girl born of two mothers one who was on a small race team and the other who was a scavver, one of the people who live away from society and only take what they need from nature. When her mothers die in their last race she swears off the race despite her prior dreams of competing. This story starts, slowly, with her getting herself into more trouble than she can handle. She is tasked with healing a fighting wolf naturally in one month. I loved the connection that grew between Sena and that wolf Iska. This story was slow, the race doesn’t take place until 55% in but it was worth it. I would like there to be more books in this series.

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley and Wednesday Books.

So first off, there are animal deaths in this book. I know that really upsets some folks so I wanted to make that clear.

That being said, this book is incredible. Sena is basically living off the grid in opposition to the system that killed her mother and is looked down on society.

The dystopian Call of the Wild vibes sucked me in and kept me enthralled. The planet is not a nice place to visit and you certainly wouldn't want to live there in Sena's shoes, but the world-building is so impressive!

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the complimentary ARC. All opinions provided are my own.

Meg Long’s Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves is a fierce, desperate, ultimately hopeful survival story about one teen’s journey across her treacherous planet in the most dangerous of races.

Actually every one of her days on planet Tundar is dangerous, not only because of its climate & weather or the predators lurking in its woods but also because Sena, the protagonist, is part scavver.

Scavvers are people who elect to live outside of the “corporate-run system” on Tundar—in a society governed by corporations & as the book repeatedly references, corporate greed, scavvers are treated with scorn, extreme prejudice, & hatred.

And now that Sena has run afoul of the major crime syndicate on her planet, she—& the fighting wolf she’s unintentionally formed a bond with—head out to join a scientific team on the race she’s said over & over again she wouldn’t enter since it’s the place her beloved mothers died.

The plot is difficult to summarize & it is intricate in the book but also explained well. Kudos to Meg Long for creating this world & society that feels innovative but also like a type of world that could exist 😬.

Exceptionally building the tensions that Sena faces & the brutality of the landscape & the people, Long tells a story that’s big on adrenaline. But it’s nicely balanced by emotion as Sena finds people & a wolf she can trust.

This is not a romance, romance friends, & FYI, it’s fairly gory & aggressive/violent with some instances of animals being hurt or not even killed, but it is a story that as I said earlier is ultimately hopeful & that ends on a real high for the protagonist.

I really enjoyed this one!

4.5 ⭐️. Release date: 1/11

[ID: the ebook rests on a pile of fabrics: a white furry blanket next to a furry gray blanket with a white piece of fabric covered in gold stars poking out of the gap between the two.]