A Wolf for a Spell by Karah Sutton illustrated by Pauliina Hannuniemi

The distrust between the wolves and the witch went back hundreds of wolf generations. No wolf ever interacted with the witch without walking away changed. At least with a human you could search for a knife or an arrow. But the witch’s magic was hidden, and could be used for any number of devious purposes.

Nadya is an orphan. She watches with great sadness when her only and best friend from the orphanage is taken away to be married to the Tsar. 

It was a fairy-tale story of the orphan girl from the woods becoming royalty that would be told by firelight for years. The tsar held to an old forest tradition that anyone who gave him a gift that he deemed worthy would be honored with a royal favor. When he visited the village, Katerina offered him one of her beautifully woven cloaks, soft as a feather and more intricate than a spider’s web. In return he named her to be his bride.

Zima is a wolf pup living alone with her two brothers because their parents have been killed. When her brother is badly injured she desperately needs to save him.

Baba Yaga is an old witch holding onto a terrible guilt. She needs to right this wrong but she is too old to travel far so she is on the lookout for a young wolf pup to use for a switching spell. 

“I must become a wolf. Yet my magic does not allow me to simply transform. I am bound by the laws of the forest, and my magic is always a trade. I need a wolf to switch bodies with me, willingly.”

The lives of these three characters will collide in unexpected ways and I am certain you will be on the edge of your seat hoping for, but not sure if, the story can reach that all important happy ending. Oh and there is also a cheeky raven who can be occasionally very helpful. 

Blurb: Since she was a pup, Zima has been taught to fear humans--especially witches--but when her family is threatened, she has no choice but to seek help from the witch Baba Yaga. Baba Yaga never does magic for free, but it just so happens that she needs a wolf's keen nose for a secret plan she's brewing . . . Before Zima knows what's happening, the witch has cast a switching spell and run off into the woods, while Zima is left behind in Baba Yaga's hut--and Baba Yaga's body! Meanwhile, a young village girl named Nadya is also seeking the witch's help, and when she meets Zima (in Baba Yaga's form), they discover that they face a common enemy. With danger closing in, Zima must unite the wolves, the witches and the villagers against an evil that threatens them all.

Opening sentence: Fear sank its jaws into Zima as she recognized the smell of magic. She pressed her nose to the ground and sniffed again. Like moonlight and decay—it burrowed into her nose, slippery and sinister. She shook her head and huffed to clear out her nostrils.

Here is a description of the tsar: Everything about him was thick and angular. He had an arrowlike nose poking out over the thick beard. When he stood, it was with one foot in front of the other, as though he were ready to begin moving again. His voice rumbled in his square chest.

There are fabulous illustrations in this book:

I picked up this book at a recent charity book sale and read about 1/3 and then because I was going away for a month and because I was SO engrossed in the story and because I cannot carry books in my luggage I also purchased the ebook version to read on the plane. This is one of those 'time is ticking' page turner stories where the 'heroes' have, in this case, only one week until the full moon. 

The cover of this book is also SO appealing and the title in intriguing - it will make more sense after you read the story. And after reading A Wolf for a Spell you will want to hunt out other books about the Baba Yaga and the house with chicken legs. 

Here are a couple of other books I enjoyed that feature wolves:

The Wolf Wilder

Wolf Siren (for readers aged 12+)

A Wolf called Wander