Wolf's Head, Wolf's Heart by Jane Lindskold
Set just long enough after Through Wolf’s Eyes for everyone to lick their wounds and show off their new scars, Wolf’s Head, Wolf’s Heart kicks off with the wedding of Sapphire and Shad. Naturally, things cannot go easily, and there’s an assassination attempt on the newly wedded royal couple. At the same time, the newly crowned King Allister learns that his newly exiled former queen, Valora, has stolen certain treasures of the realm, which are rumored to have magical powers. As all the human’s run around chasing their tales, Firekeeper is summoned home by the Royal animals, where she learns that they fear the items and want her to bring them back and into their keeping. Soon, Firekeeper returns to her human friends and they set out to reclaim the treasures-Firekeeper in homes of taking them to the Royal beasts, the humans to return them to Kings Allister and Tedrick. Meanwhile, Queen Valora has contracted with Sapphire’s ambitious mother, Melina, to unlock the secrets of the items, including trading Melina’s youngest daughter, Citrine, as a hostage. Unfortunately, Valora doesn’t realize that Melina views her children as little more than tools in her ambitions.
If you noticed that I didn’t mention Firekeeper, our main character, very much, that’s because it’s a flaw of the book: for the first 200 or so pages, Firekeeper is largely backburnered and the attention is primarily on the other members of the human court. While I like most of the cast and find the politics and intrigues of the court interesting, the draw of the book is the normal fantasy medieval court as view through the eyes of a girl who is human in body, but who thinks and sees as a wolf. With so little focus on Firekeeper early on, I found my attention wavering a lot. Once Firekeeper was called home, though, things looked up and even after she was reunited with the humans, the narrative remained centered around her, even when not from her perspective.
In addition to her old human friends Derian, Jared and Elise, she’s joined by Wendee, a former actress turned Lady’s Companion, and Edlin, Firekeeper’s new foster brother. Wendee is calm, practical and pragmatic. Edlin has his uses and always manages to be useful, but there’s not much upstairs besides good intentions and cheerfulness. I wish, though, that we could see more of Firekeeper’s interactions with Sapphire. I find their rivalry-for once not braced on looks, men, marital or political prospects or the normal fantasy causes for female rivalry, but rather, an extreme alpha female struggle between women who respect but don’t quite "like" each other-to be the most interesting of Firekeeper’s human interactions.
In short, not as good as the first, but still a good read.