TL;DR Review: A fast-paced, humor-laced, adventure that doles out secrets like a miser to keep you absolutely dying to know what comes next.
Synopsis:
She’s on the run. They’re out to kill. But what happens when you catch a hunter?
Ree is a woman with a violent past – a past she thought she’d left behind. After years of wandering, she and her niece Javani have finally built a small life for themselves at the edge of the known world.
But sometimes the past refuses to stay there, and Ree’s is about to catch up with her. This time, there will be blood.
For the land is in turmoil and professional killers have arrived in their town looking for an older woman and child, setting off a desperate chase through deserts, mountains, and mines. Ree will have to discover her former self if she is to keep them both alive.
From a master of modern fantasy comes a new thrilling trilogy, full of intrigue, bloodthirsty stakes – and a heroine who just won’t quit.
Full Review:
I had a love/hate relationship with The Hunters.
Let’s be clear: I enjoyed the hell out of this book. I couldn’t put it down, because the story was so intriguing, the action just balls-to-the-wall madness, and characters that grew more quirky and colorful with every page.
But damn, if he didn’t dangle those secrets in front of us like a tasty treat, making us beg for answers and giving us only the tiniest bit. And boy, it made for a truly addictive read!
Let me start off by telling you everything I loved:
The world. Think Wild West with the colors of Marrakech sprinkled in for good measure. Most of the story takes place in and around a mining town that could have been ripped right out of the Gold Rush, run by a pretty classic fantasy “Guild” that takes all the profits and leaves nothing for its workers. It’s a sparse, dusty, crumbling city that immediately sets the tone for the adventure ahead.
The adventure. I’m always a sucker for a good “run away and keep running” story, with all the requisite horse/carriage/wagon chase scenes, but with some fun explosive (literally) action layered in. Our main character, Ree, will do anything to keep the child under her protection (Javani) alive, no matter who she has to kill and how far she has to run.
The characters. The story is anchored by Ree and Javani, the classic “hardboiled veteran + wide-eyed kid” pairing that makes for such amazing stories (Geralt and Ciri, Mando and Grogu). But they’re just at the eye of the tornado; orbiting around them are the warrior-poet-who-won’t-shut-up Aki and his sick-of-Aki’s-bullshit sister Anashe, the mysterious and bloody-hard-to-kill White Spear, the handsome-and-totally-monomaniacal prince Lazant, Kurush the greedy guildmaster, and so many more. Every single character who appears on the page is colorful in their own way, adding to an incredibly rich tapestry that makes the story so much fun to read. It’s very clear that the author was influenced by Scott Lynch and Terry Pratchett—the humor absolutely sings with every word out of the characters’ mouths.
The action. Think the frenetic pacing of a Joe Abercrombie battle meets a Hollywood car/horse chase, and you’ll get a sense of what’s awaiting you in the pages of this book. For every quiet, contemplative, emotional moment, there are dozens more pure-carnage-chaos-and-mayhem moments that had me ripping through the chapters to see what comes next.
The emotional stakes. Though things starts off as your pretty classic adventure, it quickly dives into the Javani-Ree connection as well as the link between Aki/Anashe and Ree, and the result is an emotionally compelling read. The evolution of Ree and Javani’s relationship is particularly gripping—you join Javani in wanting to know more, and you get so little that you get sucked into the emotional maelstrom from which there is no escape.
And this is where the “hate” part comes in…
The answers about Javani, Ree, and what’s going on get doled out SOOOOOOOOOOOO slowly that I found myself shouting at the page, “SAY MORE!” at least a dozen times.
It’s absolutely intentional on the author’s part, and it’s done so brilliantly well that for all I hated it, I loved it because it kept me coming back for more. The minute he begins to even hint at some tiny detail of Ree’s past or who she really is to Javani, every part of me was instantly on alert, ready to absorb that single droplet or tidbit he’d share. Only for him to pull away and leave me dangling!
In case it wasn’t clear, the way this was done was infuriating but absolute genius. The action around the two characters kept me entertained but this mystery at the heart of the story kept pulling me in deeper and deeper with every morsel I learned, until finally we get some semblance of answers by the end. Only to realize there’s MORE mysteries we need to uncover in the next books (which I abso-bloody-lutely intend to!).
The Hunters is a masterpiece of scarcity, painting a picture so brilliant and compelling you have no choice but to allow it to drag you deeper. Be patient and peel back the layers one by one, and the end result will leave you satiated yet craving so much more.
Definitely one of the best books I’ve read this year so far!
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