Title: Hunter’s Rede
Author: F. T. McKinstry
Series: Chronicles of Ealiron #1
Genre: Fantasy/ Romance/ Assassin
Source: ARC
Pages: 316
Rating: 3.5 stars
Available at:
Blurb: (via Goodreads)
Lorth of
Ostarin is a hunter of men. Lawless, solitary and obscure, he is trained in
magic and its inherent order. This uneasy combination of pitilessness and
structure has made him the highest paid assassin in the land. It is also about
to throw his life into chaos.
The trouble
begins when Lorth returns home from a long absence to find his old haunts
compromised by a cruel, upstart warlord who has invaded the realm and pushed it
to the brink of war. Lorth’s cavalier attempt to elude a political sandpit
quickly deteriorates into a series of skirmishes that he negotiates with a
sword and a reckless penchant for using magic against the rules. He flees with
a price on his head; but no angry warlords, wizards, foreign aristocrats or
spooky apparitions can rattle him from the dark stability of his
profession—until he is captured and condemned to execution by a formidable
wizard who serves the old powers.
In his quest to
prove his innocence and loyalty to the realm, Lorth discovers a profound sense
of identity in his internal confluence of war and wizardry. But his quest turns
bloody when love for a priestess and a will to avenge his homeland drives him
to infiltrate an enemy occupation bent on domination and a blatant disregard
for the forces of magic. This brings him to his greatest test, where he must
surrender to the darkness of his nature to become a hunter unlike anything he
has ever known.
My Review:
I read this book
on the plane ride from here to Texas. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a 5+ hour
flight and a trip I hate making. I am not a plane person. Regardless, I had
several books with me to keep me occupied on the flight, as well as waiting in
airports. Hunter’s Rede was one of
them.
To be honest, my
first impression of the book wasn’t great. The beginning of the book was
extremely slow. There was such an overload of information being thrown at you
that it started to just blend together. There wasn’t any dialogue (other than a
stray line here or there) for quite a few pages in, I’m going to estimate
around twenty to forty, but it seemed like more. When dialogue did come in it
was few and far between… with lots of descriptive fillers. There was a lot of description at the beginning of
the book as well. So many places, and uniforms, and people were described that
I honestly was imagining blobs in the form of faces. It was too much
information too fast and it really slowed
down the story. If it hadn’t been a book that I was reading for an author I
would have just cut my losses and stopped reading there.
Saying that, the
book did start to pick up a third of the way through. The main character,
Lorth, (an assassin and basically a magician) finds his place within a new
kingdom after he comes home to find his hometown to be taken by foreigners and
the man who raised him is dead. Life isn’t easy. He has a lot against him and a
lot of people aren’t particularly fond of him. In fact, there are a bunch of
people demanding his head. Luckily for him, the priestess (their leader), is in
love with him.
I just want to
make a comment about how the romantic aspect of this story was. I found it
incredibly abrupt and fast. He was sick, he slowly gets better, he is lusting
after her, he is better and gets cleaned up, she sees him cleaned up and BAM!
Sexy scene. I was sitting there like, “What just happened?” Now, it is entirely
possible that I missed subtle clues ahead of time, and it is also possible that
my bias is based on the fact that I like romances to play out the sexual
tension before anything major happens, so I am not going to penalize the book
for this area of critique.
Having said
that, the romance between the priestess and Lorth helps drive the story
further. I loved the tension between Lorth and the Priestess’s son (who is half
god and Lorth’s age). I loved the relationships between ALL the characters. I
felt that this was the book’s strongest aspect. All the relationships (no
matter how small and seeming insignificant) were incredibly realistic and
engaging. I lived for the dialogue because, once the dialogue started, it was
great and showed so much of Lorth’s character as well as complimenting all the
established relationships he had with other people.
Character
development was well done. Lorth completely changes, in a good way, throughout
the novel. Actually, it’s not so much that he changes, but that he finds out
who he really is. His act of mercy in the end of the book truly showed the
extent of his growth and his kindness as a human being. It wasn’t only Lorth
that changed though, all of the characters that played front and center roles
changed with him, accepting him and what he brought into their lives. Development
was definitely the second best part of the novel.
Lastly, I want
to address the plot. The plot wasn’t bad, in fact, it was quite good. I just
felt it was distracted. As more information poured in from the author to the
reader, the plot sometimes took a back seat. I understand the difficulties of
trying to get all the fantastical information in so the reader knows what is
what in a completely different world, but the act of giving the information
needed a little bit more finesse and subtlety. Once again, I want to stress
that the plot, while distracted, was really interesting and engaging. I didn’t
feel like there were any scenes that were completely unnecessary and it was
very fluid and appealing. The fight scenes in particular were quite exciting to
read.
Overall, there
was a lot of excellent aspects of this novel, but its slow start and the
tendency for information to be dumped on the reader was what ultimately brought
it down rating wise. However, if you like an Arthurian feel to your books, I
would definitely say that this one had it! I would recommend it for the patient
reader.
