Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy, Read by Saskia Maarleveld

Every Monday through Friday, AudioFile’s editors recommend the best in audiobook listening. We keep our daily episodes short and sweet, with audiobook clips to give you a sample of our featured listens.

Saskia Maarleveld narrates Charlotte McConaghy’s novel, Once There Were Wolves, a paean to the majesty of wolves. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Michele Cobb discuss Saskia’s skills with enlivening the characters, Scottish and Australian both, who inhabit this emotionally heavy and intriguing tale. Head biologist Inti Flynn is an Australian scientist with touch synesthesia, a sensory disorder that causes her to feel any pain she witnesses. Maarleveld captures both her accent and the tension that lurks in her psyche. Inti is working to reintroduce 14 wolves into the wilds of Scotland to restore the remote forest environments, but the locals are not exactly pleased, and there is a suspicious death in the woods.

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Support for Behind the Mic comes from Naxos AudioBooks. Recent releases from Naxos AudioBooks have included Nicholas Boulton’s splendid performance of Lawrence Durrell’s The Alexandria Quartet. The four books were commercially and critically celebrated on their release and collectively remain the author’s most well-known work: Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, and Clea. Find out more at naxosaudiobooks.com.