This was an incredibly compelling story that was difficult to read, but ultimately very worthwhile. The style was unlike anything I've read - very unusual and it sometimes made it hard to connect with the characters. I don't know if this is a factor of the translation or simply the author's style. Yet at the same time, it could be very beautiful, even in its descriptions of unthinkable tragedy and stark horror and violence. Once I found my rhythm with the style, I flew through the book.

I love historical fiction, especially that set during WW2, and I always appreciate when I can read a story from a different perspective. Here we have WW2 drawing to a close. Left to fend for themselves, women and children are being forced from their homes in Germany. As the Russian soldiers arrive, the woman know how dangerous their circumstances are. They are starving to death and heading into winter without proper clothing or heat, Desperate, mothers are sending their children into the nearby forests where they secretly cross the border into Lithuania to beg for work and food for their families. These are the "wolf children," and this debut novel tells their story,

I can't even imagine the horror these mothers faced, and the decisions they had to make for their survival and safety. I'm so glad to know the story of the wolf children, even though it was a very hard one to read. The Germans may have been the enemy, but these women and young children were innocent. And the Russian soldiers were far from noble in their roles as victors. This is an author I will absolutely keep my eye on

I was provided with an ARC of this title by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. 

This is not a book that obfuscates or sugar coats the truth. It illuminates a brutal period in history and highlights the fact that no community is safe from the ravages of war.  Humanity is driven by its will to survive at all costs. 

When German families are evicted from their homes by Russians in the aftermath of WW II, they have nowhere to go and no way to feed their children. So they send them into the forests of Lithuania to forage like beasts. The children become creatures of the wild, irrevocably changed by the savagery of their existence.

The subject matter alone proves the book is worth a read, especially today after so much time has passed and history becomes clouded. 

How quick we are to forget the true scope of just how many victims war can leave, especially in one such as WWII. Though a hard read, due to the events described and based on true stories, it was a well thought out, meaningful and sadly brilliant novel. 

Anyone deeply interested in history/WWII and not adverse to reading about the horrors and hardships of the children left behind from war should give this book a chance.

-The formatting did not properly divide chapters in the eARC which could cause some confusion when reading as it seems to jump about, but I'm unsure if the problem is fixed on the final copy. Thank you to OneWorld Publications and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest opinion.-

I have read a lot of book set in WWII so when I sat down to read this book I was a little surprised.  This is not your feel good two lovers find each other at the end of the war and lived happily ever after.  This book will break your heart.  I never knew what German children had to go through and it just makes me sad.  Along with Night by  Elie Wiesel this book should be on the required reading list at school.

Such a well-researched and written book. The suffering of starving women and children near the end of WWII is a heart-wrenching story, showing the atrocities of war at their lowest. But the bravery and perseverance of these characters make the strength of the human spirit shine through. Well done and well worth the read!

Wow, an impressive debut!  I read a lot of historical fiction and WWII stories are becoming a dime a dozen - I always enjoy the opportunity to learn something new about history that hasn't already been covered a million different ways.  I learned a lot from this book and it kept me intrigued from the beginning.  The subject matter was quite dark and parts of it were hard to read.  An excellent book but not for the faint of heart.

The idea for this story that became In the Shadow of Wolves was brought to Alvydas Šlepikas in 1996 by a film director friend of his who suggested that they should work together on a documentary about the so-called “wolf children”, destitute German children from East Prussia, who, in the aftermath WWII, went on a perilous journey alone to sneak into Lithuania in search of food, shelter and some sense of safety.  After the defeat of the Nazi army, the northern part of East Prussia was annexed by the Soviet Union and became the enclave of Kaliningrad. The German population was consequently expelled from their lands and homes, which were given to citizens from the Soviet Union to repopulate the newly annexed territory.

The planned film project eventually fell through, but Alvydas Šlepikas decided to honour the victims of this little-known, horrific chapter in history by turning the real-life stories of the survivors into this book that was originally published in 2012 and is now also available in English through Romas Kinka’s translation.

The novel mainly focuses on one family, a mother with several small children, that, after the takeover by the Soviet army, has been forced out of their home and is living in a shed on their former property. The cruelty of the Soviet soldiers, particularly towards the women and young girls, has become a constant part of their everyday lives as they fight to survive the bitterly cold winter months by scavenging for scraps of food, without any hope for a brighter future. In their desperation, the mother has to make the incredibly difficult decision to allow the older children to go on the dangerous journey alone to Lithuania to work or beg for food that they could then bring back to their family so that they wouldn’t starve to death.

While the book is very interesting from the historical perspective, I found the writing style to be quite underwhelming. The blunt, minimalist prose might have been a stylistic choice made by the author to accentuate the bleak nature of the story, however, it made for a rather monotonous reading experience. After a while, I started to feel worn down the by harrowing vignettes about destitute characters, who are continuously humiliated and destined to die from hunger, and wished for some respite from the distressing narrative through a bit of gorgeous writing that would inspire me to keep turning the pages. Also, the disjointed nature of the narrative was constantly keeping me at arm’s length from the characters and, as a result, I felt that I never truly got to know these characters as individuals. The narrative would abruptly shift between the different perspectives, which detracted from their individual stories, and this lack of a clear focus prevented me from getting emotionally attached to anyone in particular.

Although this is a very short book, the heart-breaking subject matter makes it a difficult read. It’s a haunting story that highlights important, lesser-known historical events, and it’s impossible to remain unmoved by the plight of these young children, who are robbed of their childhood and forced to risk their lives for their family’s survival, however, the way the author chose to structure the story prevented me from getting emotionally invested in the characters. I would still recommend it for the fascinating insight into an overlooked part of post-WWII history.

‘’People appear as if emerging through a mist, a snowstorm, a winter fog; they grow dark, casting a shadow on the trampled, blood-soaked earth, and then are gone.’’

East Prussia. The Second World War has ended but the sounds have only just started bleeding. In a macabre game between the Soviet Army and the withdrawing Nazi forces, the people living in the forest have to fight against nature, wolves, enemies but most of all against their own past, their own cursed heritage. And as always, women and children are the usual victims.

Yes, the first few pages are so harrowing they stab your heart even if you have read dozens of books about WWII and its atrocities. Yes, it is probably one of the most merciless books you’ll ever read, supposedly based on a true story. But I found it highly problematic. I had many objections regarding the course of the story and I consider the execution of extremely unsatisfying.

The writing seemed to me dry and uneven. Certainly, there is a plethora of atmospheric passages and a few horrifying scenes but we’ve seen that before, in much better books like Child 44 and When the Doves Disappeared. The interactions between the characters seemed soulless and the characters came across as flat, one-dimensional, each child was drawn very similar to another and it was so difficult to distinguish and ‘’transfer’’ your mind to a different character. Perhaps, the book would have benefited from a better translation but I suspect that I cannot blame the translator for faults that seem to lie within the heart of the story and the attitude of the writer.

Now, these are my personal observations, my thoughts. And if I come across as confused and torn it’s because I am. And if my perceptions are wrong, so be it. But I cannot lie. What happens when you become the mirror of the nightmare you have caused? Blood begets more blood, as they say, and the links of the chain are forged by the minute. Fascists of both sides create Hell and innocent children are the easy victims of fanatics and the merciless, objective winter. Can we forget the past and reconcile? Can we bring ourselves to say ‘’what’s done is done’’ and start anew? On the other hand, how can you find the strength to overcome the human urge for revenge when your country has paid an unimaginable blood toil caused by the Nazi monsters?

No, there are no easy answers and the book supposedly poses these questions. It is up to the readers to interpret them as they will. However, the writer strangely omits any references to the Holocaust and I couldn’t discern any feelings of guilt in the thoughts of the characters. Is it possible they did not know of the Nazi fire that had swallowed Europe? I find it hard to believe and I would go as far as to say that his writing seemed conveniently forgetful...I don’t know. These questions were constantly battling in my mind while I was reading and the result wasn’t satisfying. On a technical note, Eva, the mother of the story, has certain moments of downright, proper Nazi behaviour and mentality. Make of this what you will…

Did the writer manage to make me feel sorry for the family? No. I am sorry, I couldn’t feel anything because a) I was kept at a distance and b) his overall stance was extremely one-sided. I can’t bring myself to feel sorry about Nazis and Soviets dying but I did feel sorry for the innocent people of Lithuania who paid the price of the fight between the Nazi terror and the liberators who became a mirror for the monsters they fought to drive away. Yes, the wolf-children of the story were innocent. Of course, they were. But the children in the concentration camps were also innocent. The children burnt alive in villages destroyed by the Nazi demons were also innocent. The raped women, the executed husbands were also innocent. The writer seems to have forgotten their existence. And for this, the novel was a bitter failure…

Many thanks to Oneworld Publications and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com

This book had some great promise and had some good writing but I found it hard to connect with. The characters were okay and they were somewhat interesting. I would read another book by this author, not this one.

In the Shadow of Wolves, Alvydas Slepikas's stunning debut and Winner of the Georg Dehio Book Prize 2018, is a fact-meets-fiction historical novel and I found my heart breaking time and time again whilst reading. It tells the story of destitute German women and children and their fight for survival having been forcibly removed from their homes by resettling Red Army soldiers. These children were sent by their mothers over the border into neighbouring Lithuania to scavenge and beg for food in the hope that they would be safe there; this is where the name Wolfskinder or Wolf Children came from. Based on real events that occurred in 1946 it is clear from the outset that Slepikas has researched this topic extensively making it authentic and compelling. 

Make no mistake, though, this is a brutal, stark and profoundly moving look at a neglected part of WWII and its aftermath; a piece of history that deserves to be known. The author has to be lauded for his vivid, lyrical prose as it was so rich that I found tears rolling down my cheeks at some of the passages. The cruelty these women and children were subjected to will break even the coldest of hearts. It is by far the most affecting historical fiction novel I have ever read and with its rawness, it takes the reader on an emotional rollercoaster ride. It's certainly not for the faint-hearted as the atrocities committed by the Soviets are reprehensible and reading about them in such detail was very emotional; I felt my blood beginning to boil at times. The atmosphere is so visceral that you feel everything for the characters. 

An incredible novel; it's amazing to think that this is a debut. I cannot wait to see what Slepikas publishes in the future. A rare talent and a book that deserves to be widely read. Many thanks to Oneworld Publications for an ARC.

Eastern Prussia in the bitter winter of 1946. The Soviet Army is in occupation, keen to take their revenge upon the German people. Eva, a Berliner, who came to live with her husband has been forced from her home by the occupiers and is living in an adjacent woodshed, trying to find food and fuel for her family and sister-in-law. Her husband was called up to fight for the Wehrmacht and his whereabouts and indeed his existence, is unknown. It is a cruel, terrible life, trying to avoid starvation, to keep warm and protect herself and her daughters from the drunken sexual assaults of the Red Army soldiers, who were actively encouraged to torment the civilian population. The family is dispersed, and the story follows the travails of the children as they attempt to find safety and protection in that hostile anti-German environment. While the title of the book reflects the nature of many of the people that these vulnerable children looked to for assistance, it also pays homage to the name that these helpless children were called – Wolfskinder – who left Soviet-occupied East Prussia and headed for Lithuania to look for safety in their plight. 
	The narrative at times reads like a fairy-tale – a story horrific and founded upon true events, but showing the fantastical nature of the times, when survival itself was a terrible challenge. Not always an easy book to read, given the cruelty meted out to children, but it is a story that should be told and has been performed well by the author.

Having spent 15+ years married to a man of Eastern European descent [his parent's were from Estonia and fled the Russians by crossing the Baltic Sea at night to Sweden], I spent many a night listening to stories such as this one of just what everyone had to do to survive the war and the Russians once the war was over. And it was all as horrific as you could imagine. This book brought many of those stories back to my mind as I read it. 
 Most people are unaware of the things that happened in the Baltic States and in Russia during and after World War 2 and it is books like this that bring these things to light and it is important that we learn and remember these things - we must never forget and we must never let it happen again. 
This book was very true to life and my heart broke again and again as I read this story. A must read in my opinion. 

Thank you to NetGalley and Oneworld Publications for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

“Wolf Children” – the starving and desperate children of East Prussia in 1946 who were turned out of their homes by the advancing Russian troops and who were forced to make the perilous crossing into Lithuania to try to find food. The cruelty and brutality of war dog their every step and every step is fraught with danger. It’s a harrowing tale and one which is little known. Based on fact, it’s impossible not to be moved by the plight of these children as they fight for survival. However, as a novel, the book has its faults which for me detracted from its potential power. It lacks narrative focus and jumps from child to child, often abruptly, before the reader has a chance to become invested in any individual. Sometimes it takes a moment to work out which child we are now following, and I never felt that I really got to know any of them in any depth. Cumulatively it’s a heart-breaking story, and it’s interesting to discover that the author originally planned to make a film of what he’d learned about this period, and indeed the book has a cinematic feel to it. As it stands, however, the disjointed nature of the narrative has a distancing effect on the reader - or at least on this reader.

Like other reviewers mentioned, I too am really struggling with the formatting and the story makes little sense at times. I have decided to DNF for this reason.

Having visited Lithuania last year, I am always fascinated by fiction set there; unfortunately, there is a real dearth of this.  'In the Shadow of Wolves' is a great addition however; it is compelling and poignant.

Americans are most familiar with the Western European events of World War 2, so it is not surprising that I had never heard of the “wolf children” of Lithuania. These were displaced children who roamed the countryside in search of sustenance during the latter part of the war. The desperate plight of one small group of these children is the subject of Slepikas’ novel.  Episodes are presented through stark, sensory details that leave the reader with nowhere to escape. Beautiful and haunting, In the Shadow of Wolves is a must-read for those with an historical interest in World War 2, but is even more relevant as an exposition of the true casualties of any war - the helpless “collateral damage” members of a society.

While I enjoyed the depth of historical detail within the story, I struggled to read this as a result of the formatting. Should the formatting get updated, I would rate this title much higher than what I currently have.

Based on the tragic true story of young German children at the end of the second world war, when entire families were forced out of their homes to make way for the advancing Russian soldiers. Women and children were starving and living in fear of violence and death and so many young children travelled through the forest and into Lithuania in search of work or food to take home to their families. These children became known as Wolf Children as their suffering and starvation made them desperate to the point of becoming feral, 
It is clear that the author has done a lot of research into the topic, and that it is one that matters to him deeply. So many of the stories he recounts are distressing , and the book is a very moving account of an aspect of  World War II history that is not well known. I do feel that it might have been better to stick to the stories of one or two of the children, if they had been fleshed out a little more, the book might have been easier to follow. Instead we jump between characters, locations and times at a dizzying rate, and this unfortunately makes the book quite difficult to follow. Even allowing for the formatting problems I encountered in my ARC being resolved, I still think the book could benefit from some more attention to the way the narrative flowed.
I would recommend the book for anyone with an interest in that period of history with the caveat that the formatting issues be resolved.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

In The Shadow Of Wolves by Alvydas Slepikas is newly published in an English translation and I was very impressed with Romas Kinka's work in preserving the Slepikas' stark prose. In common with How We Disappeared it brings to light a forgotten aspect of World World War Two, in this case the plight of destitute German women and children forcibly evicted by resettling Russian soldiers and civilians. I was intrigued by eerily similar scenes to those I recently encountered in The Hare With Amber Eyes depicting people being forced from their homes purely on account of their ancestry. There Germans perceived starving Jews as little more than animals; here, just a few years later, Russians talk of starving Germans in identical terms.



I feel that In The Shadow Of Wolves is an important novel to read and talk about even though the actuality of reading it is not a pleasant experience. Don't get me wrong - I loved the evocative writing and vivid portrayals of people and place, but that clarity of description is extremely difficult to bear. An East Prussian winter is bitterly cold, even more so when one's home is a woodshed and 'meals' more often than not are boiled water, perhaps with raspberry stalks for a little flavour. The chill emanates from every page.



There were frozen corpses along the side of the road and, at a little distance from the road people were sitting on logs. The children asked: 'Why are they doing that, what are they waiting for?' Lotte explained. 'They're dead, they couldn't walk anymore, they sat down and froze.'


That quote was one of the most shocking moments for me. Not so much that people had simply sat down knowing they would die as a result, but that those still walking past could be so matter-of-fact about it. This horror has become normality. That anyone could have survived these years is astonishing, yet this novel incorporates the memories of some of these wolf children whom Slepikas talked to. In The Shadow Of Wolves is a timely literary reminder of just how easily everything can be lost when intolerance is allowed to thrive.

Thanks to netgalley for an early copy in return for an honest review 
Oh dear I feel awful having to say I had terrible  trouble  trying to read this book and I know iam not alone I feel for the author  I managed to get half way  and had to give up.