[1] Estés won a Las Primeras Award from the Mexican American Women's Foundation for being the first Latina on the New York Times Best Seller list.

[2] The book also appeared on other best seller lists, including USA Today, Publishers Weekly, and Library Journal.

[3] Estés had been producing popular audiotapes of her stories and research and was approached by publishers to turn them into a book.

[1] The stories printed in the book were given to her from her family, people she met on her travels, or her patients, as part of her work.

The Wild Woman lives everywhere we are and can be found everywhere: In beauty, in daily affairs, in an honest smile.

[4] Through cultures the Wild Woman has many names in many different countries, e.g.: La Mujer Grande, the great woman (Spain), Dakini, the dancing force which produces clear seeing in women (Tibet), Psych-ology, knowing of the soul; Losing contact to the inner guide takes away joy and inspiration and makes women merely ‘function’ in everyday life.

It makes women shaky, depressed, feeling powerless, shame-bearing, chronically doubtful and more.

Old scars and passion are doors through which a woman may find her way back to instinctual nature.

[4] The first story is about La Loba, a wolf woman who lives in the desert and collects bones.

[6] American folklorist Barre Toelken criticized Estés' analysis of the Bluebeard tale as conflating versions from separate cultures.