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A review by dtaylorbooks
Hunter and Fox by Philippa Ballantine
4.0
How did we end up here
When Pyr sent over the first two WIDDERSHINS novels this book was in the box with them. It sounded interesting so I kept it around. I obviously didn’t get around to reading it until now but I’m glad I did.
Okay, book. You've got 50 pages. Go!
The world begins immediately with the start of the first sentence in the opening chapter. It was actually a little discombobulating with all of the world-specific words but they were put into a good context and if I was a little thrown to start it didn’t take me long to settle into the jive of the story. Within the first few chapters you meet the Hunter and the Fox and they seem to be existing on two distinct plot lines, however the deeper you get into the story the closer they move to each other and their hard lines begin to blur. I think it was the nykur that really did it for me though. It wasn’t too much beyond a horse to start but the more you got to know the Hunter the more you got to know her steed and it’s so much more than that.
What worked . . .
Without a doubt the world. It’s so incredibly rich and filled with its own stories that every time I was given a piece of it to play in it soon became not enough. I wanted more! I wanted more stories from Finn and more turmoil from the Hunter. She was a piece of work and one that was at war not only with everyone around her but with herself as well. She was well and truly along in the world and trying so hard to sew back together a gushing wound but the stitches never stayed shut for long. You can see her breaking as the story goes on, becoming less and less of herself as what little hope she had gets chipped even further away.
And the Fox took a path in the opposite direction, growing stronger as a character as he got aid from creatures and people and never thought possible. You can feel the destiny in him growing as you read and it eventually becomes so incredibly evident that you have to be blind to not see it. He is going to be something more. Just what that something is, though, is left to be seen.
The Phaerkorn were also pretty neat. Also known as blood witches they definitely had a vampire vibe going on with them but they were more than just blood-drinking beings. They had a power about them that could actually aid people. And the Vaerli? I couldn’t get enough. I still feel like I don’t know enough about them and it was pretty much their story exclusively. I should say the story belonged to the people the Caisah all but eradicated and you are able to watch as they knit themselves back together from the shattering they received to stand up against him.
What didn't work . . .
The voice came off as stilted most of the time. If the characters and their stories weren’t separated into their own chapters it would have been hard to tell them apart since they all sounded alike. It’ll be interesting to see how that plays out in the next book when they actually start interacting with each other (I’m assuming). The only two characters that really stood out against the rest not just in character but in words were the Caisah and his number one harem there, Kelanim? I can’t remember her name off the top of my head. They each had very distinctive voices when the three singing travelers, the Hunter, the Fox and Byre all blended together when compared against each other. The voice issue kept me from loving the book. Right now I just liked it a lot.
And in the end . . .
Ballantine’s got a good story going here and I’m looking forward to reading the next book in the series. The voice was a bit of an issue and had the characters not been separated out into their own respectively chapters it would have made for a difficult read and been far less enjoyable. As it stands it’s a fantasy I really like. The world is incredibly developed, I liked the stories of all the different people and how they’re all coping with this tyrant and the creatures within it. I like how Ballantine kept familiar aspects of our world in hers but amped them up, gave them powers and turned them something more than just another run of the mill horse under a different name or a vampire. She made it all distinctly hers and all the pieces of her puzzle fit. I loved fitting them into place and waiting to see what they revealed. Well worth the read and something I wish I would have gotten to sooner.
When Pyr sent over the first two WIDDERSHINS novels this book was in the box with them. It sounded interesting so I kept it around. I obviously didn’t get around to reading it until now but I’m glad I did.
Okay, book. You've got 50 pages. Go!
The world begins immediately with the start of the first sentence in the opening chapter. It was actually a little discombobulating with all of the world-specific words but they were put into a good context and if I was a little thrown to start it didn’t take me long to settle into the jive of the story. Within the first few chapters you meet the Hunter and the Fox and they seem to be existing on two distinct plot lines, however the deeper you get into the story the closer they move to each other and their hard lines begin to blur. I think it was the nykur that really did it for me though. It wasn’t too much beyond a horse to start but the more you got to know the Hunter the more you got to know her steed and it’s so much more than that.
What worked . . .
Without a doubt the world. It’s so incredibly rich and filled with its own stories that every time I was given a piece of it to play in it soon became not enough. I wanted more! I wanted more stories from Finn and more turmoil from the Hunter. She was a piece of work and one that was at war not only with everyone around her but with herself as well. She was well and truly along in the world and trying so hard to sew back together a gushing wound but the stitches never stayed shut for long. You can see her breaking as the story goes on, becoming less and less of herself as what little hope she had gets chipped even further away.
And the Fox took a path in the opposite direction, growing stronger as a character as he got aid from creatures and people and never thought possible. You can feel the destiny in him growing as you read and it eventually becomes so incredibly evident that you have to be blind to not see it. He is going to be something more. Just what that something is, though, is left to be seen.
The Phaerkorn were also pretty neat. Also known as blood witches they definitely had a vampire vibe going on with them but they were more than just blood-drinking beings. They had a power about them that could actually aid people. And the Vaerli? I couldn’t get enough. I still feel like I don’t know enough about them and it was pretty much their story exclusively. I should say the story belonged to the people the Caisah all but eradicated and you are able to watch as they knit themselves back together from the shattering they received to stand up against him.
What didn't work . . .
The voice came off as stilted most of the time. If the characters and their stories weren’t separated into their own chapters it would have been hard to tell them apart since they all sounded alike. It’ll be interesting to see how that plays out in the next book when they actually start interacting with each other (I’m assuming). The only two characters that really stood out against the rest not just in character but in words were the Caisah and his number one harem there, Kelanim? I can’t remember her name off the top of my head. They each had very distinctive voices when the three singing travelers, the Hunter, the Fox and Byre all blended together when compared against each other. The voice issue kept me from loving the book. Right now I just liked it a lot.
And in the end . . .
Ballantine’s got a good story going here and I’m looking forward to reading the next book in the series. The voice was a bit of an issue and had the characters not been separated out into their own respectively chapters it would have made for a difficult read and been far less enjoyable. As it stands it’s a fantasy I really like. The world is incredibly developed, I liked the stories of all the different people and how they’re all coping with this tyrant and the creatures within it. I like how Ballantine kept familiar aspects of our world in hers but amped them up, gave them powers and turned them something more than just another run of the mill horse under a different name or a vampire. She made it all distinctly hers and all the pieces of her puzzle fit. I loved fitting them into place and waiting to see what they revealed. Well worth the read and something I wish I would have gotten to sooner.