This was a fairly recent review, published in the May 1, 2021 issue of Booklist. I appreciated the reimagining of fairy tales in this story, the first in the Wilderwood series, and am looking forward to seeing which other fairy tales Whitten pulls into the series.
Red’s tragic destiny kicks off Hannah Whitten’s debut novel, For the Wolf, as she prepares to enter the Wilderwood. Second daughters of the royal family are expected to sacrifice themselves to the Wolf when they turn twenty. Red arrives haggard, attacked by the forest itself, at a castle, discovering that the famed Wolf is actually a man, as the fairy tale suddenly transitions from Little Red Riding Hood to Beauty and the Beast. The Wolf’s attempts to contain her to the castle are a guilt-ridden, Herculean effort to shelter her from the woods; he failed to protect the previous second daughters. But Red’s magic makes her a powerful ally as he struggles to repair the woods, preventing the arrival of dark creatures from the Shadowlands. They are hampered by Red’s sister, Neve, and her betrothed, unsuspecting accomplices of an evil priestess seeking to release the Five Kings, mistakenly believed to be gods, from the Shadowlands. Whitten reaches a satisfying, yet unexpected, conclusion while setting up the next book in the Wilderwood series.