This is a slow burn tale of a young girl's coming of age journey set amidst a harsh landscape and an even harder world. Young Maniye is 14 years old and lives in a world where people belong to different animal totems and, as such, are divided into clans based on whatever animal form they can shift into. She is the offspring of a non-consensual mating between the Chief of one of the wolf tribes and the Queen of the tiger tribe. As a result, Maniye can shift into both animals which is a rarity in this world. Unwilling to be a pawn in the schemes of her uncaring father - in addition to always being an outcast in her own village, Maniye decides to flee believing that any other life would be better than the one she has. Maniye’s father is the Wolf clan’s chieftain, but she’s an outcast. Her mother was queen of the Tiger and these tribes have been enemies for generations. Maniye also hides a deadly secret. All can shift into their clan’s animal form, but Maniye can take on tiger and wolf shapes. She can’t disown half her soul, so escapes – with the killer Broken Axe in pursuit. The book is constructed as an introduction not only into this Iron Age world full of clans of humans, who also carry within them the soul of an animal typical for the regional environment, but also as a set up for a big event soon to come, most probably a war, but the adversaries are yet to be determined. This upcoming gloom and doom casts shadows over the whole continent and clans from different parts of the North, Midlands and South are looking to establish alliances. In that macro scope, the author introduces us to one of the most microscopic in influence character - a young girl who lives in her father's clan of Iron Wolves and is only trying to survive without bringing notice on herself. In her experience, notice usually comes with pain, belittlement and abuse. But being the daughter of the clan's chief, and having been born of the union between a wolf and a tiger, she is hard to ignore, as insignificant and pathetic as she might seem. Living with both animals' souls in her body, the time has come for her to choose one, or the battle within her will drive her insane and tear her apart. Also, her father has some plans of how to use her to his best advantage. Thus the story begins. It is a coming of age story, but it is also a study on human interaction told by Tchaikovsky the best way he can - by looking at it through the lense of our animal siblings... This is when he shines the most. And despite it being a tad too slow moving, the story was hypnotic and engaging. I really want to know what this whole set up was all about and am looking forward to the next book in the series. I think the book is appropriate for most readers over the age of 12... There is violence, but I found it congruent with the story development and nature of the characters. Nothing gratuitous and no sex (some veiled references to abuse)...

The Tiger and the Wolf by Adrian Tchaikovsky | Waterstones

Review first posted on Fantasy Literature. But first, let's take a moment to admire one of my favorite book covers ever:Let me guess: You think they will meet, fight a little with each other and then fall madly in love, while saving their respective kingdoms from an evil overlord! Well ... the answer is both yes and no: there are plenty fantasy tropes in the story, but Tchaikovsky manages to infuse it with his own personal style - a combination of fascination for biology and a keen interest in live-action role playing. The Young Adult flavor, the complex magic system geared towards player vs player duels and the lively pacing reminded me more of Brandon Sanderson than of the "Shadows of the Apt" series. Before I try to write a synopsis, let me say up front that I prefer Tchaikovsky to Sanderson, enough so to automatically add some stars to what is a thrilling debut for a new epic fantasy series, but not really a masterpiece by any objective metric. It's a personal favorite of 2016, but I suppose readers who are not so easy to please or are not already a fan of the author will give it a lower rating. Starting from your den all the way to the depths of the forest, the high-end graphics will leave you amazed. Chase the realistic animals and enjoy the beautiful environment! By the end I was engaged and cared enough about the characters to be on the edge of my seat, but I didn't cry. Now this is important because I will cry at the drop of a hat, and there were times that I thought, "huh, that's sad" but didn't care enough to cry. I am so disappointed. I wanted so badly for this to have been a top read of the year. But enough of my complaining, here is what I did like, but why ultimately I couldn't love it:

The Tiger and the Wolf: Volume 1 (Echoes of the Fall, 1)

Told in turn from both her perspective and Akrit's this is also a very insightful exploration of a father-daughter relationship gone wrong. Akrit, while clearly not a great parent who makes some very questionable choices, can be over ambitious, arrogant and cruel, is not actually an evil person...but she and he are too different and they have walked different paths too long to be reconciled and what he perceives to be Maniye's continued defiance of him does certainly push him to do evil things. Finally the other key character is a champion of the River people who is journeying into the lands of the Wolf to seek their help and find out more of their culture. He is a character who took a while to grow on me, but I think as the book goes on he becomes more vital to the plot too. This is important, because the main female lead is an in-between girl. And if I am not head over feet in Maniye as of yet, I cannot deny that THIS is how one creates an in-between protagonist (not like it was attempted in the awful Ten Thousand Doors). Manyie, a daughter of a murdered mother and a power-hungry father, is a sullen and closed girl. She does not have any special gifts aside of one that makes her rather a misfit than a hero potential. She is the Wolf but she is also Other, a child of three shapes with two of them at permanent war. But how to chose one over the other? A right eye over a left one? My father,’ she murmured . . . but of course he was not her father, he had never been her father. He was only the man who had tried to make her his.The unnecessary content. As I said above, there was so much that could have been pared down. The flight and fight scenes in particular could have shaved about a third of this book away if they were edited down some.