For the Wolf (2021) is the first book in the Wilderwood duology written by Hannah Whitten. This fantasy twists the fairy tales of Red Riding Hood and Beauty and the Beast into a romance between Red, the Second Daughter who is sacrificed according to an ancient religious ritual, and the Wolf, guardian of the Wilderwood that holds back the monsters of the Shadowlands. As Red gradually learns the truth behind the myths that she’s been taught all her life, she also finds herself fighting the mistaken efforts of her beloved twin sister who wants to destroy the Wilderwood and bring Red back. The book explores What Qualifies as Monstrosity, The Burdens of Inheritance and Belief, and The Power of Sacrifice.

The second book in the duology, For the Throne, turns to the story of Neve, Red’s sister, as she too grapples with the nature of power. Whitten’s other works include The Nightshade Crown trilogy, also a fantasy, and Reliquary (2026), a standalone novel that ventures further into the realm of horror.

This guide uses the Orbit paperback edition published by Hachette in 2021.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature a depiction of death by suicide. The guide’s Background section contains a brief reference to sexual assault.

Plot Summary

Redarys, nicknamed Red, has known all her life that, at the age of 20, she will be sacrificed for the sake of her people. Her twin sister, Neve, is the First Daughter and will inherit the throne of Valleyda. The Second Daughter is sent into the Wilderwood as a sacrifice to the Wolf in hopes that he will free the Five Kings.

Hundreds of years ago, at the Binding, the monsters in the world were imprisoned in the Shadowlands. The Wilderwood, the forest on the northern border of Valleyda, was infused with the remaining magic of the world in order to contain them. A man named Ciaran and a woman named Gaya made an agreement to become the guardians of the forest. 50 years after that, the Five Kings, including Solmir, entered the Wilderwood and tried to bargain to get the magic back. They never returned.

Three other Second Daughters have been sent to the Wilderwood in the hope that their sacrifice will persuade the Wolf to return the Five Kings. Neve is angry that now it is Red’s turn, but Red has consigned herself to going. Four years ago, in an attempt to break the curse, Neve and Red entered the Wilderwood. What happened that night has left a shard of magic inside of Red that she fears is destructive. Convinced she is a danger to those around her, she is willing to fulfill the pact.

Red says goodbye to her lover, Arick, who has been elected as Neve’s consort. She visits the shrine where branches of the strange white trees that are found in the Wilderwood are kept. Then, on the day of her 20th birthday, wearing a scarlet cloak gifted to her by her sister, Red enters the Wilderwood. She feels her magic stirring and senses that the trees want to devour her; when she is accidentally cut, one of the white trees absorbs her blood.

Red travels to a crumbling castle and enters it to find a man working in the library. She assumes he is the Wolf and demands the Five Kings back. The Wolf introduces himself as Eammon, the son of Ciaran and Gaya. He tells Red he doesn’t have the Kings and she might as well return to Valleyda. Red, however, still fears her magic is dangerous, so she stays.

She is given a room in the Black Keep, and Eammon tells her not to bleed on the trees. Red meets Lyra and Fife, two others who live at the Keep and became guardians of the Wilderwood due to a bargain they made. Red learns that a strange rot from the Shadowlands is infecting the white trees, which are called sentinels. If a sentinel is removed or injured, a breach can form from which a shadow creature emerges. The first time Red sees one, she is terrified. Eammon, as the guardian of the Wilderwood, uses his magic or his blood to heal the sentinels of the shadow rot. When Red, frightened, destroys a shadow creature, Eammon realizes that she possesses a magic like his.

Eammon proposes a thread bond, a kind of marriage, that will help them work together to stabilize and use Red’s magic. Though she is initially wary, after she sees a man infected with the shadow rot, Red agrees to try. Eammon does his best to shield Red from the forest, but it seems the Wilderwood wants her blood, and the forest destroys her bedroom. Red resorts to sleeping in Eammon’s bedchamber while he sleeps on the floor. She feels increasingly attracted to him.

Back in Valleyda, Neve looks for ways to rescue her sister. Her mother, the Queen, is ailing, but one of the priestesses of the shrine, Kiri, says she knows a way to weaken the Wilderwood. Arick agrees to help. After Queen Isla dies, Neve makes Kiri the High Priestess of a new group called the Order of the Five Shadows. Though she suspects Kiri has bigger ambitions, Neve only wants to bring Red back.

Red travels with Eammon to the Edge, a land at the northern edge of the Wilderwood, where explorers were trapped when the Wilderwood first closed its borders. Eammon continues to worry about shielding Red, but at the Edge, they are welcomed as the Wolves. Eammon gives a seamstress Red’s cloak to repair. They visit the man who was shadow-infected, who is still ill, and use their combined magic to heal him. Red senses that Eammon is connected to the Wilderwood in ways she isn’t, but she wants to help him, especially as sentinels keep disappearing.

When Eammon gives her a mirror that helps her see her sister, Red realizes that Neve is doing something that is harming the sentinels and allowing the Shadowlands to seep through. She tells Eammon she needs to return to Valleyda to talk to Neve. Eammon thinks that Red should leave the Wilderwood altogether, but Red doesn’t want to leave him. They kiss, but Eammon fears that if he relaxes his vigilance even for a moment, the forest will devour Red. He shows her the bones of the other Second Daughters and explains that he couldn’t keep the forest from draining them. Red sees that he intends to allow the Wilderwood to drain him instead, and she doesn’t want that. During a particularly bloody effort to restore several wounded sentinels and seeing Eammon hurt, Red shouts at the forest that Eammon didn’t choose this. She feels the Wilderwood pause and consider this matter of choice.

Red takes her cloak and returns to Valleyda, but it feels strange to be back. She tries to explain to Neve that she is part of the Wilderwood now. Arick seems different, not himself. Red goes to the shrine and finds all the missing sentinels, but they are inverted, their roots growing toward the ceiling. Neve and Arick have been shedding their blood on the trees, much like Red and Eammon do, but instead of protecting the Wilderwood, Neve and Arick’s work, directed by Kiri, is weakening it so they can appropriate magic from the Shadowlands. Red uses her blood to destroy the shrine and return the sentinels, but the man who looks like Arick captures her and puts her in a dungeon.

Red learns that her friend Arick is a fellow prisoner in the dungeon, and the man who looks like him is actually Solmir, one of the Five Kings. Solmir escaped the Shadowlands when Arick tried to bargain for Red’s return. Kiri and Solmir both speak of roots, and Red finally realizes how she can truly become a Wolf: She needs to ask the Wilderwood for the roots, essentially inviting them inside her body so she can become an anchor for the forest’s magic. She does this, and in claiming her newfound power, Red destroys the prison and leaves.

Red returns to the Wilderwood to find it briefly restored and in balance, but soon after, she and Eammon both sense that several sentinels have been removed. They and a group of friends travel back to the border to find that Solmir and Kiri have created an inverted grove where they intend to perform a ritual to release the rest of the Kings. They are using Neve, who is encased in a coffin, to help their work. Eammon takes all the magic into himself to fight Solmir, while Red realizes she needs to sever the bond between Arick and Solmir so that Solmir can be defeated. When she does this, the coffin holding Neve sinks into the earth, taking her into the Shadowlands.

Eammon defeats Solmir, and Red asks Eammon for the roots again. They divide the magic of the Wilderwood between them, leaving the forest simply the forest. Red vows she will find and rescue Neve, and Eammon vows to help her. They are both now the Wolves of the Wilderwood. In an Epilogue, while Red continues to search for her sister, Neve wakes in the Shadowlands and sees a man who says he’s been waiting for her.