Award-winning novels come under much more scrutiny from book clubs. Your overall verdict on The Tenderness of Wolves was that it was worthy of a first-novel prize, but perhaps not quite accomplished enough to be crowned the Costa Book of the Year.

It is not perfect. I agree with Gill Vaughan that the bone tablet in the story should not have been a red herring – it was almost as if Penney had became bored with that strand of the mystery. It is, however, the sort of novel that is less rewarding if you try to nitpick and overanalyse it. Penney’s style demands that you submerge yourself rather than dip your toe into her words. Norma Oliphant compared reading it to jumping into fresh snow.

Penney has never visited Canada, and Mary, from Ontario, points out that the characters travel too far in too short a time. But a correspondent from Wasaga Beach did not let that spoil her enjoyment. Much has been made of the fact that the novel is full of descriptions of scenes that Penney had never seen – so I expect that compliments from Canadian readers will please her most of all.

Star Letter

I read The Tenderness of Wolves and fell into the story right away; the characters were well drawn and Penney is able to lead the reader from one page to the next. It doesn’t matter that you do not warm to the heroine, I don’t think that you are supposed to. I was intrigued by her mental illness, which left me wondering what had happened in her earlier life. Will we ever know? Is there going to be a sequel? I think that one thing Penney is trying to tell us is that we are all alone at some time in our lives. We could be surrounded by crowds but still experience this loneliness.

The only disappointment is that the distances here are vast and Penney has her characters travel them in too short a time (I think because she has never been to Canada). Going from forests to the treeline would take weeks. Driving along the top of Lake Superior takes three days! So imagine footslogging from northern Georgian Bay into Hudson Bay.

Mary, Ontario

What made this book a winner?

June 9, 2007

Alyson Rudd looks back at judging the Costa First Novel award and how The Tenderness of Wolves staked its claim

I AM ALMOST ADDICTED TO BEING an awards judge. I have assessed radio shows, television programmes, television presenters and books. By far the most time-consuming is books. Last summer was a time of endless knocks on my front door by couriers with another batch of submissions. I would stare at boxes or heavily taped envelopes and wonder when the flow would end. But although I occasionally regretted agreeing to be a Costa First Novel Award judge a few minutes after saying yes to being a William Hill Sports Book of the Year judge, I enjoyed myself immensely.

There is something hugely satisfying about placing a book to one side, thinking it might be a contender. It is equally satisfying to throw one over your shoulder, spitting that it is not fit for a charity book stall.

Each award has a different format and the Costa affords more power to individual judges. Three are appointed for each award and each is sent a batch of novels – but not the same ones. So if a judge has a secret hatred of any book say, with the word “love” or “thrombosis” in the title, or thinks that awards should go only to novels of 400 pages or more, some fine books may miss out.

I noted with incredulity when one or two of the novels I threw over my shoulder received rave reviews or won other awards. It proves how subjective judging can be, but also that books can succeed despite rejection.

For the First Novel award, we each had to nominate three titles that were sent to the other two judges. We then met for lunch with the nine books in front of us. This is where the fun started. It felt a bit like the Wild West. Who would shoot first? Who had the better aim? I probably arrived with too much ammunition. The William Hill Sports Book dinners are notoriously feisty and I was, to a degree, using the Costa as a practice run. My fellow judges were affable and quietly spoken and must have wondered what prompted my dismissal of their favourites.

These meetings are about negotiation. You might allow a book you consider merely adequate on to the shortlist if one you think a real dud can be ousted at the same time. Because it is hard to announce a winner if one judge hates a title that the others love, the winner is often one that nobody detested but few truly adored.

The Tenderness of Wolves emerged as our winner in a slightly different way. The judge who chose it had not expected the other two judges to think it anything but pleasant and competent. But we thanked him for picking it.

Tenderness was the last of the new novels I read. I sighed as I picked it up, imagining it might be an overly emotional affair. I was tired of books by authors who had not quite learnt how to write. However, I was soon pulled into the lonely, wintry world of Canada in the 1860s.

My rule for deciding which books deserved my attention was, well, that they had to be able to hold my attention. Only two things matter in a novel; ability to write and ability to tell a story. Too many submissions were from authors who knew lots of adjectives but who simply could not induce one to turn the page. Penney could. She has a relaxed authority rare in a first-time author. She takes her time, making sure that the reader is comfortable in the surroundings before moving the plot along. That is why she also won the overall Costa Book of the Year. Tenderness is not good for a first novel; it is good in its own right.

Much to the delight of reporters who attended the awards cremony, Penney had a confession of sorts. She had written about Canada but had never been there as she has agoraphobia. She swotted up the history and geography in the British Library. If I am honest, I did wonder for an instant if I had been duped. But this was fiction and novels are about the application of imagination, after all.

William Boyd’s Restlesswas Penney’s main rival as the overall winner and word spread that he had missed out because one or two judges took a dislike to his book while everyone liked Tenderness. This was reported as a bad thing: popular book wins prize – how disappointing. No doubt there was an element of compromise but the three judges on the First Novel panel were extremely happy to put Tenderness forward after noting that it had emerged from a powerful shortlist.

If nothing else, its success should reassure readers that the plot does thicken and is satisfactorily resolved, that the twists are clever, the descriptions beautiful and, most of all, that it is worth reading to the end. Quercus £7.99, 466pp Can we take the book’s descriptions seriously when Stef Penney (below) has never visited Canada? Does it matter that it takes time to warm to the heroine? Why does the author give Mrs Ross a suspected mental illness? Is this a novel in which everyone is an outsider?

Quercus, £7.99, 466pp

Buy The Tenderness of Wolves for £6.39 (free p&p) at 0870 1608080

Buy the book here

The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney

May 26, 2007

On the trail of a killer in the snowy wastes of Canada. But does it matter that the author never went near the place? Read the book and then join in the discussion below

The Tenderness of Wolves won not only the 2006 Costa First Novel Award but was overall Costa Book of the Year. It is an ambitious work. Stef Penney writes well enough to win plaudits for a much simpler story, but she gives us historical romance, murder and mystery.

The novel is set in Canada in 1867. Mrs Ross seems unfriendly, but half the novel is written from her perspective, so we slowly warm to her and begin to understand her demeanour. She finds the body of Laurent Jammet, her closest neighbour and a hunter of wolves. He has been scalped. To add to the shock, her 17-year-old son has vanished on the day of the murder. Penney throws another mystery into the mix. Two young sisters have been missing for years and an industry of sorts has grown out of their disappearance and the search for them. Jammet was one who had tried and failed to track them There is much tracking in this novel and, to Penney’s credit, I did not skip a single description of it. The author has never been to Canada and has worked hard at her research for she writes as if she too had had to camp in the forests, frightened by the whiteness of endless snow and the howling of wolves.

This is a classic tale of good guys and bad guys and the triumph of love over hate and good over evil – delivered with a lovely twist. Mrs Ross, a sort of John Wayne in drag, hitches up her skirts and leaves behind the coffee house gossip to find her son, whom she refuses to believe is responsible for Jammet’s demise.

The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney

Quercus, £7.99, 466pp

Buy the book here for the offer price of £6.39 (free p&p)

- Thanks to Quercus we have six copies to give away to one lucky book group. E-mail books@thetimes.co.uk with your details to enter the draw.

The Key Questions

Can we take the book's descriptions seriously when Stef Penney has never visited Canada?

Does it matter that it takes tiem to warm to the heroine?

Why does the author give Mrs Ross a suspected mental illness?

Is this a novel in which everyone is an outsider?

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