Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted over at Wishful Endings to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about but haven’t yet read. Most of the time they’re books that have yet to be released, but not always. It’s based on the Waiting on Wednesday meme, which was originally hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.
This week my Can’t-Wait-For Book is A Wolf Steps In Blood by Tamara Jerée!
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Black sapphic MCs, F/F
Published on: 16th April 2024
Goodreads
Yasmine is a red wolf girl stuck in rural Alabama. Her world is small: pick up shifts at the greasy late-night diner and endure her pack’s petty squabbles. She’s not good at being a wolf or being human, directionless in life and disconnected from her ancestors.
Blessed by a century-old enchantment, the local red wolves have escaped extinction by blending into the human world. But with the old witches’ blessing wearing thin, the wolves face an uncertain future.
An answer arrives in the form of an exiled blood witch whose magic is steeped in reckless grief. Kalta rides into town in her dead brother’s truck, prophecy following on her heels. Despite the danger Yasmine can smell swirling around the witch, a fated bond tangles their futures—and those of all the wolves.
After an accident threatens the wolves’ secret, Yasmine has no choice but to join Kalta on the road, carving a path through the South’s backroads and hoping the magic brewing between them is enough to overcome their bloody pasts.
Tamara Jerée is the INCREDIBLE author of The Fall That Saved Us, which I utterly adored and am still working on a review for. So learning that they’d written another book?! Oh, HELLS yes!
(And you can read an excerpt of chapter one right here!)
Everything about this new book sounds as marvellous as Fall was! First off, I kind of want to cry – mostly happy tears – to see red wolves featured; they’re critically endangered and it means so much to me that Jerée specifically chose them, to draw attention to them, with their book, when they could have chosen any kind of wolf, or just unspecific generic magic wolves. That alone would have me feral for this book, okay?
But also: I love the idea of wolves who became humans, or rather shapeshifters, to survive. That’s an idea I’ve played with in my own writing, even! And – the witch’s blessing is wearing thin??? What exactly does that mean? That the pack will lose the ability to transform? Does that mean they would be stuck as wolves, or as humans? Or could every pack member end up in different forms, whichever they’re in when time runs out?
Do they know how long they have? I mean, can you imagine the anxiety of that deadline, and how much worse it would be if that deadline is vague? If it’s something like, the same day it was cast but a century later – what exactly does that mean? What time of day? Midnight? The time the spell was cast?! AHHHHH!
I’m getting sidetracked, I know.
But Kalta! A blood witch! Blood magic is always fun – but what did she do to get exiled? Was it fair or unfair? Where is she going, and why does Yasmine have to go with her? Obviously one goal will be renewing the blessing on the wolves, but what else is there? What’s the prophecy about, and who made it, and how trustworthy is it???
I am VERY EXCITED to find out, and we only have to wait a few more weeks!!!
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