Conor is a hunter – but he’s never really followed in his
father’s footsteps of cutting off all his emotional ties and his own sense of
compassion. He cares – whether it’s about an injured dog – or a magical young
woman definitely in need of help. Even if she does have her own secrets and her
own agendas
And especially when there are far darker forces in the city: and his fellow hunters’ terrible methods of investigation
The foundation for this story is good.
We have an intriguing world with lots of suggestions of a
broad world. And I do like a broad world with a wide range of magical beings
all co-existing, especially if there is a sense of depth behind them. That’s always
been something I liked. So this world with the many different kinds of fae (and
I really like how many of these fae are presented as truly alien beings rather
than pointy eared humans), the magic-users with their different powers and
involved magic system. We have the hunters and their traditions and specific
abilities and lots of hints of other creatures and other worlds
And I like the hints. This is, after all, the first book
of a series, and one mistake many authors make is by deciding to push in their
entire world system in their first book. Less is more when introducing a new
book and new characters.
Hunters themselves have a beginning of world building. We
can see they have some dedicated goals and they are a definite asset due to
their training, drive and supernatural abilities in bringing down real threats.
On top of that, I can definitely see – and think it was very well depicted –
that Hunters too often see all supernatural creatures as the enemy
This does have a shaky moment though as we have a
similarly awesome piece of world building. The presence of Seelie fae increases
“art, inspiration and nature to humanity”.
While Unseelie fae bring disease, destruction et al. This is a really
interesting concept and definitely adds to the world building. Except the
hunters apparently know this – yet still treat all fae the same. It seems like
a bit of world building that doesn’t quite fit or needs some more expansion.
I also don’t like the plucking of Detroit as a real world
example – because there are major systematic issues with the decline of Detroit
that go way beyond a woo-woo “too many unseelie”
