The main reason that I bought Wolfskin was because I noticed that Marillier was a New Zealander (or at least was born here, although she lives in Australia now), and there’s not really very many NZ sci-fi/fantasy authors or books, and I’d like to support the locals as much as possible. (As an aside, my favourite NZ book is Beak of the Moon, by Philip Temple, also of Dunedin).
So I wasn’t really expecting that much – it wasn’t quite charity, but I would have been happy with a pretty mediocre story. However, I really loved this book. I’m not sure why so many fantasy authors feel the need to set their stories in/around the UK, but it’s so common that it didn’t really bother me here.
The characters in Wolfskin were excellently developed, and a pleasure to get to know. The antagonist was nicely grey – although you really could despise what he did, you could also understand his motivation for the most part. The magic was pleasingly subtle, and the battles sufficiently short.
One minor note that bothered me (minor spoiler alert): early in the book, a girl is attacked, and the attacker isn’t identified. The implication is that it’s the antagonist, Somerled. The way the scenes were written, it seemed likely to me that it would turn out to not have been (directly) Somerled at all, but rather the girl’s friend, led to a bad decision by listening to Somerled (so he was at fault, but only indirectly). Even later in the story, when the friend is re-encountered, nothing in the events seemed to contradict this theory. However, the book ends without coming back to it, so I suppose that we’re meant to just believe that it was Somerled who did the attack. I think it would have suited Somerled’s character, and improved the story, if we had discovered that it wasn’t directly his fault.
The story ends well, with the story nicely resolved, and although there’s clearly a hook left for a sequel, it’s subtle enough that the ending is satisfying and yet the hook doesn’t seem like the only purpose for that element is the sequel.
Overall I highly recommend reading Wolfskin, and intend to keep an eye out for anything else that Marillier produces.
TonyAndrewMeyer 
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