SPFBO 10 Semi-Finalist Review: Wolf of Withervale by Joaquín Baldwin

SPFBO 10: Wolf of Withervale by Joaquín Baldwin

EDIT: As you probably saw in our SPFBO 10 Finalist Announcement post, we picked Wolf of Withervale as our finalist for SPFBO 10! Congratulations to Joaquín Baldwin and good luck in the finals!

Welcome to the Semi-Final stage of SPFBO 10! As you know, we already cut 25 books from our batch of 30 and announced our semi-finalists. Check out our SPFBO 10 page for more info! In the next few weeks, we’ll post group reviews of each semi-finalist, and then we’ll reveal our finalist on October 17th.

Our fourth SPFBO 10 semi-finalist review is forWolf of Withervale by Joaquín Baldwin. The order of the reviews within a post will be the following: first is the person who picked the book as a semi-finalist, and then the others in alphabetical order.

In the Semi-Finals all of us will try and read all of our semi-finalists in order to be able to determine our Finalist based on our overall scores.

Both in the Semi-Final and Final stages we’ll have a DNF rule in place: if a judge reads a book (either semi-finalist or finalist if they didn’t opt out beforehand), they have to read at least 25% of it. If they decide to DNF between 25%-50% they’ll have to give a score but can opt out of writing a review, and if they DNF after 50% (or not) then they also have to score AND write a review.

For Wolf of Withervale we have 4 reviews and 5 scores for your reading pleasures.

So, without further ado, let’s take a closer look at our third semi-finalist!

Table of Contents

About the Book
Series:Noss Saga #1
Genre:Fantasy, Epic Fantasy
Publisher:self-published
Date of Publishing:October 10, 2023
Book Blurb
Wolf of Whitervale by Joaquín Baldwin

An ambitious, sweeping saga. As epic as it is queer.

Lago was only a child when the shapeshifter entrusted the wolf-like mask to his care—an artifact so powerful that it could come to shape the entire world of Noss.

Now that he is coming of age, Lago is becoming ever more fearful of the ominous relic’s influence, of the empire who has scented its trail and is coming after it. Coming after him.

Aided by his best friend, an enigmatic scout, and his trusty dog, Lago seeks refuge in the vastness of the Heartpine Dome. The eighty-mile-wide structure had remained sealed for centuries, safeguarding more than mere secrets. Now that the dome’s entrails are stirring, the mysteries of the long-vanished Miscam tribes are coming to light, and the shapeshifting animal spirits are making their return.

Powers untold hide behind the blinkless eyeholes of the canid mask, powers that could tip the balance in the war. Lago is barely beginning to learn how to wield the dark visage, but he can already feel its potential.

… And he can feel a different change coming, deep in his marrow.

Riveting in scope and worldbuilding, and exquisitely illustrated by the author, this tale of transformation and self-discovery is filled with unabashed wonder and a lust for places unknown. A profoundly queer adventure that explores sexuality, our connections to other species, unconventional kinds of love, and the very nature of consciousness.

Wolf of Withervale is the first installment of the Noss Saga, an epic LGBTQ+ fantasy series.

Review

Jen

Read: 100%

My notes for the Wolf of Withervale were just ridiculous, so hold on to your hats because this is going to be a long one. I even cut two pages off this because Timy said 500 words, which obviously she forgot who is writing this and was joking, right?  

*

The Wolf of Withervale is an incredibly ambitious story; a complex blending of races and world-building, with a future-recovered world built on the collapse of ours. It’s familiar, beautiful, and strange all at once.

*

The story begins with a grandma’s dying wish to have a mask returned to her grandson, via our main character Lago and builds from there.

Wolf is a slower kind of building story in the way of most fantasy epics. For the most part, there was always something keeping me turning the pages and interested. A lot of the wonder of this world was in the joy of discovering, and in the relationships/friendships that the characters built while doing so. I loved those moments, especially when you could feel the importance of what they were learning.

The story never settled in one place for too long, at least in the first half, though there were times I wished it had settled in more in the places it didn’t, and moved on more in the places it did. If that makes sense.

*

I adored Lago. He’s kind of an underdog in some ways but doesn’t allow himself to be tromped down. He’s smart, curious, and he kept me invested in his life. I’m probably a bit old-school but there’s nothing I like more than having a lead that is genuinely great, because when I am spending this many pages with them, I want to enjoy their company.

I also adored Alaia and Lago’s friendship/found family relationship (if you read my reviews, you’ll know by now that this is my jam in any book) and also the time Lago spent with Crysta and others at the monastery. Everything about that time, let me experience and learn the world that Lago lives in, care about the life/family he has built for himself, all while building the anticipation for the tipping point when you knew it was going to all come crashing down. And it does splendidly.

In the first part of the Wolf of Withervale, I could feel the story building into an Avatar-esque/Fern Gully kind of feel, with the Negian Empire coming to use all the resources of these clans that are tightly balanced to their surroundings with nature, etc. I was ripping through the pages as fast as my little ebook could turn them.

The trip to the Heartpine dome and the time spent in it, was everything I hoped for, and from the way the story felt like it was building in the beginning, I thoroughly expected the events of this book to take place during the time spent travelling and discovering the one dome, only.

*

The story slowed a lot in the second half. That’s not to say I didn’t love it to pieces. I did. Just not with the same page-turning fervor of the first half. The fact that I think of the story in two halves probably says a lot about how different they felt to me.

The back-end while still epic, essentially felt more like a cozy fantasy version of Attenborough’s The Living Planet. You know, like the ones where they follow a cute little field mouse around, show you their families and them stuffing their cheeks full, and then, bam! A snake eats them on the way home to their little mouse family… just kidding that didn’t quite happen here but I did keep waiting for the other shoe to drop and the book to race to a big finish.

Though the storytelling in the back half was just as strong and Banook was just as loveable as the rest of the group, I found myself getting antsy and counting remaining chapters.

I think mostly it was the pacing/tonal shift.

That and the focus was more on the exploring and building of Lago and Banook’s relationship and it almost felt like we were starting over. Lago was still front and center, but the friends in his group faded to the background, along with the events with the Negian Empire that were building outside of this bubble of our group. They were there, but you’d almost forget about them between stop-ins to see what they were up to.

We did have a few side-trips and lots of stories and lore being told-which were amazing btw (and would make great extra content) and even though Banook was the sweetest old man bear you ever did see… I think by this point I had become a little exhausted by the sheer amount of information, coupled with the group being mostly static for so long at their safe place. I was more than ready to move on, long before we actually did.

And here it is… my favourite criticism; this could have stood dropping a couple of hundred pages. Even if the book is the tightest written thing I have read in a while and I am enjoying the hell out of it, if I begin checking the percentage bar is a good sign to me that it has more baggage than it needs or I’d prefer.

*

Despite my complaints about length, I enjoyed the hell out of this story and I’m positive I could go on about this book for another three pages because it was pretty damned amazing.

There was so much I didn’t even touch on in this review- like the excellent use of breadcrumbing, or the conversations, or how alive/real everyone felt. Nor have I scratched the surface of the Negian Empire, The Red Stag, or anything to do with the “bad guys” or to do with the cultures, the shifting, or even the masks. And let’s not forget the authors’ gorgeous illustrations throughout the book.

In fact, I pretty much left all the cool stuff unsaid, so that you all can experience the Wolf of Withervale for yourself. What a story!

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Liis

Read: 100%

So, here’s the thing. I daresay a lot of reviews for this book will include a sentence that goes something like: it could have been shorter. And, yes, there would certainly have been ways to condense the story without it losing direction in plot… BUT… I also daresay that Baldwin would absolutely not have it any other way. The world he has created for this saga is vast. Most importantly, a lot of the elements he has created for this story are amazing – the new money, the new language, measurements, time, all possible metric conversions have been converted into something new. The illustrations are sublime. There are pages upon pages of exploration of locations, characters, the legends.

All that and yet the direction of the plot was the steady, stable focus point in the centre. I would like to say that Baldwin has every right to be uber proud of the work he has done. It’s no small feat. Plus, if you didn’t know this, all of the books in the saga are written, waiting for their turn to be published. The fans of this saga can be happy – they won’t be left hanging.

Personally, whilst I mostly enjoyed this book for its uniqueness and it’s ambitious size and for the sheer amount of work that has gone into it, I did get a little impatient at times and found myself skimming. There was one more thing that was just too much based on personal taste, or distaste, that stopped me from becoming a diehard fan. I will refrain from revealing it because 1. it would be a spoiler, and 2. each to their own. I can reveal that it had to do with some sexual choices.

Whilst at the start of the book I found it a bit hard to get used to the fact that very young characters spoke in such crude terms (yeah, I am naive like that), then the end of the book introduced a character that quickly became a favourite. So, in essence Wolf of Withervale was a book of opposites for me. Give it a try, you never know, it might be your favourite read this year!

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Timy

Read: 55%

When I learned that Jen was picking Wolf of Withervale, I have to admit, I was not thrilled. Not because it’s an epic fantasy – with young protagonists – but also because of the high page number. I just don’t have the time and patience to read chonky books. The good news is, that 50 pages of that number is the appendices with a glossary, maps, and all that jazz. The bad news is, the actual book is still 700 pages long if we take that 50 away. I’m always wary about books with a high page number, because more times than not, the book could do with a bit (or rather a lot) of trimming down. Of course, there are readers out there who love extensive worldbuilding and big books, but I’m not one of those readers. 

And as expected, Wolf of Withervale could have been a much better book if it was 200 pages shorter. There were complete chapters (especially in the beginning) that I could cut entirely and reduce them to a handful of paragraphs. It’s one of those books, where you can tell that the author put a lot of research and thought into the worldbuilding and is excited to show it off to the reader, and that’s fine, it’s just that for me, it takes away from the enjoyment. And even though the point where I stopped reading was pretty intriguing, the thought that there was still 300 pages more to go when I already spent 2 weekends (I rarely read during the week) reading it, was daunting. And I honestly didn’t connect enough with either the story or the characters to spend any more of my time on it, eventually. 

All that said, I can’t say that Wolf of Withervale is a bad book, because it’s not. Yes, it has faults, and it’s clearly a debut novel that could be improved upon in the future, because the seeds are there. The worldbuilding is interesting (if a bit overdone) with the creepy and mysterious domes that litter this world, the different races, the magic, the queer characters. But the focus was too heavy on the worldbuilding, and even at the 55% mark, I wasn’t sure what the plot was supposed to be other than “we need to find the people this mask belongs to”. Okay, but why? Even the chapters from the enemy POV don’t give us an answer to that. Admittedly, I haven’t finished reading, so for all I know, we do get some answers. And I think there are 16 books planned in this series/world, so obviously there are going to be a lot more going on, but for as far as I’m concerned, the plot was a bit thin for my liking. But this very well could be a me problem. 

A bit about the characters. While I couldn’t really connect with them, I was still interested in their stories. I could sympathise with Lago, with his abusive father who couldn’t get over his wife’s death, and the fact that his son is different. I appreciated that Baldwin took the time to show us where Lago is coming from and how he became the young man he is during the better part of the book – sexuality and having a love for nail polishes and all. And a natural curiosity for the world beyond his home. But I loved Alaia the most, his best friend who is treated like a slave and dirt by most of the society due to her race (and her peculiar look that comes with it). But instead of hiding her true self she proudly showed off herself and her personality and I admired that. And could relate to it a lot. 

Wolf of Withervale is definitely an ambitious book, and while it didn’t win me over, I can see it doing well with others who like detailed worldbuilding and an epic fantasy with queer characters at the heart.

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Tru

Read: 100%

Wolf of Withervale truly puts the ‘epic’ in epic fantasy in both size and scale. Like The Stranger of Ul Darak, this tome (for it is a tome) has created an incredibly ambitious and detailed world, but unlike Stranger, I had no problem understanding it. And like The Stranger of Ul Darak, it suffers somewhat from its own obsession with worldbuilding. Or does it?

The story is split in three parts and begins with our main character of Lago as a child as he spends his days running errands and hanging out with his best friend and loyal dog. But everything changes when a fox-shifter dies after entrusting a strange wolf-like mask in his care. Part one takes its time introducing Lago and his world, and what a fascinating world it is. The various cultures and kingdoms of this world have rebuilt after a cataclysm known as the Downfall destroyed most of the previous generations and tribes, taking their mysterious technologies with them. But the Downfall left behind gigantic domes spread across the world, which no one has been able to penetrate. All of this becomes important in Lago’s life, as when the story shifts to his eighteen-year-old self, the enemy empire comes looking for the old wolf-mask, forcing Lago to flee and seek answers inside one of these domes.

Thus begins an epic quest across the land which features some of my favourite elements of fantasy—a journey with a rag-tag group of companions who become trusted friends. Lago unlocks magical abilities from the mask as he learns how to wield it. All the while, the enemy nation begin plans of their own.

Wolf of Withervale is a combination of many different things. It takes its time to establish elements of the worldbuilding, but once the story really gets going, I found myself enthralled by the adventure and the mystery of the domes. At times, the story is dark. There’s death, torture, and even sexual assault, which are referenced with a content warning. It’s also lovingly queer, with sexual scenes at various points. It’s also quite cozy, with scenes where the story slows to dish out mouth-watering descriptions of feasts or spend time sniffing the flowers.

But this is a big book. I honestly think the slow opening may put off readers. Persevere, and the story matures like a fine wine as the worldbuilding slots into place. Wolf of Withervale was an incredible read for me. I found the characters charming and I truly enjoyed being part of this world. I also loved the many maps and illustrations included in the book, and I found myself wandering off to the author’s website to view them properly. I recommend doing the same!

Our Judgement
Team Queen's Book Asylum's scores for Wolf of Withervale by Joaquín BaldwinArina: 6
Jen: 8
Liis: 7
Tru: 8
Timy: 6

Our score for Wolf of Withervale by Joaquín Baldwin:

Score 7/10

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