Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves: A Novel

by Meg Long

Overview

A lone girl determined to survive. The feral wolf she must learn to trust.

Only one chance to escape their icy planet: a race across the deadly tundra.

Seventeen-year-old Sena Korhosen hates the sled race, especially after it claimed both her mothers' lives five years ago. Alone on her frozen planet, she makes money any other way she can—until she double-crosses a local gangster.

Desperate to escape, Sena flees with his prized fighting wolf, Iska, and takes an offer from a team of scientists. They'll pay her way off-world, on one condition—that she uses the survival skills her mothers taught her to get them to the end of the race. But the tundra is a treacherous place. When the race threatens their lives at every turn, Sena must discover whether her abilities are enough to help them survive the wild, and whether she and Iska together are strong enough to get them all out alive.

As the girl and the wolf forge a tenuous bond and fight to escape ice goblins, giant bears, and the ruthless gang leader intent on trapping them both, one question drives them relentlessly forward: Where do you turn when there is nowhere to hide?

Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves is a captivating, breathless debut about survival and found family that delivers a fresh twist on classic survival stories.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250785060
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	01/11/2022
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	62,187
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 8.70(h) x 1.30(d)
Age Range:	12 - 18 Years

About the Author

MEG LONG was born and raised in Louisiana and originally wanted to be a spy. Instead she somehow found herself teaching overseas in China and Malaysia before ending up in Colorado, where it snows entirely too much. She taught middle and high school for eight years before jumping to the tech industry as a content writer. When not reading or writing, she’s kicking things at her Muay Thai gym with her boyfriend, playing video games, or obsessing over Sailor Moon fanart. Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves is her debut novel.

Editorial Reviews

12/06/2021

Ever since her mothers died on the racing trail five years ago, 17-year-old narrator Sena Korhosen has lived by one simple rule—“No wolves. No sleds. No racing”—even though the frozen Edge World of Tundar relies upon the annual race of genetically engineered vonenwolves across the frozen waste to mine precious, seasonally accessible exocarbon. Determined to eventually start over on a less brutal planet, presumed-white Sena makes ends meet as a pickpocket, but when she runs afoul of a brutal syndicate leader, she’s forced to use the skills taught by her late mothers—one a racer, the other an ice-dwelling scavver—to heal his injured, unengineered prize fighter wolf, Iska. Sena’s desperate bid to get off-world sees her stealing Iska and joining the 1,000 mile race, where danger waits around every turn. In this atmospherically told debut with a leisurely beginning, Long skillfully navigates her resourceful heroine through a treacherous, chillingly described tundra setting. Sena’s growing bond with Iska, and her relationship to the natural world and struggle for survival, aptly explore themes of corporate greed, environmental care, and personal resilience. Ages 12–up. Agent: Alexandra Machinist, ICM Partners. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

04/01/2022

Gr 9 Up—Long takes readers underground and cross-country in her deadly, frozen sci-fi adventure. Sena was orphaned by the deaths of her mothers in a corporate-sponsored wolf sled race on Tundar, a planet with "electrically charged weather and never-ending ice." She is part "scavver," a mysterious ethnicity hated by the greedy "corpos" who have no regard for human or animal life. Sena is discontent, living her life stealing from tourists and skulking on the edges of the city's underworld, wanting nothing to do with the upcoming race. By chance she is pulled onto a team of researchers who know she could be an asset because of her background and scavver know-how. With her wolf companion, she reluctantly agrees to go along, knowing it could cost her life. The author creates a tale of darkness and intrigue with a tough narrator. The complex world of the novel's setting is a bit of a challenge to envision, and the planet's specific vocabulary can be an early stumbling block. However, once Sena's voice breaks through the pain of her circumstances, readers can't stop rooting for her. Human/animal interaction, heart-stopping race action, and lurking predators are evenly paced, while plot lines crescendo and converge. The blizzard scenes, ice collapses, and temperature drops may entice those who skipped Gary Paulsen or Jean Craighead George to go back and fill in reading gaps. Contains some strong language and violence. VERDICT A forceful debut for teen fans of danger, the outdoors, and the underworld.—Jane Miller

School Library Journal

2021-10-26
Proud, stubborn, and lonely 17-year-old Sena Korhosen survives by picking pockets.

The only thing Sena wants is to save enough money to get off-world, far away from Tundar, an unforgiving planet of electrical storms and bitter cold. When she crosses a cruel crime boss, he offers her clemency—if she can rehabilitate his vicious, prizefighting she-wolf. It’s not a task she feels up to, but she has no other choice if she wants to escape to a better life. After a near-fatal turn of events, Sena finds herself in charge of the stolen she-wolf and agreeing to do the one thing she swore she’d never do: take part in a deadly 1,000-mile race to reach valuable exocarbon deposits, the same race that claimed her mothers’ lives five years before. Sena may not have a lot, but with the wolf Iska by her side, she has a lot to lose and even more to gain. The action scenes are so fast-paced as to cause whiplash, while quieter interludes slow down enough to allow readers to catch their breath. There is no romantic subplot—instead, the growing trust between Sena and Iska is the focus. The worldbuilding is intricate, and the icy setting is so detailed that readers will feel the need to bundle up as they speed through to the exciting and satisfying conclusion. Main characters are assumed White; some secondary characters have brown skin.

Fast and furious. (Science fiction. 14-18)

Kirkus Reviews

*An Indie Next Pick*

"The perfect winter read might just be this inventive and atmospheric debut." —Buzzfeed

"Fast and furious...The worldbuilding is intricate, and the icy setting is so detailed that readers will feel the need to bundle up as they speed through to the exciting and satisfying conclusion." —Kirkus Reviews

"Long skillfully navigates her resourceful heroine through a treacherous, chillingly described tundra setting. Sena’s growing bond with Iska, and her relationship to the natural world and struggle for survival, aptly explore themes of corporate greed, environmental care, and personal resilience." —Publishers Weekly

"Whether Iska is helping Sena cross a wasteland or thawing her heart, the bond between girl and wolf is lovely and touching. Readers will root for them as they’re swept along on their wild ride." —BookPage

"Vivid, dangerous, and absolutely exhilarating, Cold The Night, Fast The Wolves imagines a world teeming with predators both animal and human, telling a captivating story of survival alongside a heartwarming bond that grows between girl and feral fighter-wolf." —Chloe Gong, New York Times bestselling author of These Violent Delights

"Wholly unique and unexpected, this cut-throat story of survival kept me on the edge of my seat. Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves is a beautifully written, dangerous debut that packs one heck of a punch." —Adalyn Grace, New York Times bestselling author of All the Stars and Teeth

"The worldbuilding in Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves is so amazing that for DAYS, I was walking around feeling I was being besieged by blizzards in an icy wasteland. It is a deeply immersive sci-fi book, and I can't WAIT for everyone to get their hands on it!!" —Xiran Jau Zhao, New York Times bestselling author of Iron Widow

"The winter survival aspects of the race are intense and heart-pounding, and animal lovers will appreciate Sena’s bond with vonenwolf Iska." —Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

“If you want to immerse yourself in a world of ice and a bitter race that might end in death, you’re going to want to add this book to your list.” —The Nerd Daily

From the Publisher