"A ribbon so you know I'm here"

What the summary doesn't tell you is that along the way Ash saves half the cast from dire straits at various points (in person's case twice!) because she can not because anyone particularly tells her to. Seriously, she even says she can't help herself it just kind of happens. A lot. (to be fair she also is laboring under a pretty intense case of regret because of Genevieve's death).

Höst says that Hunting was in response to Regency Buck by Georgette Heyer, a story about a girl searching for her brother and getting into a wild amount of scrapes (considering how well to do she was) and constantly needing rescuing. One thing Ash doesn't really need is rescuing (though on occasion she does need help rescuing herself). Ash prepares for things and within reason can estimate how things will shake down to anticipate what she needs to do.

She's not infalliable; her mistakes tend to be underestimating people and their motivations however. Ash has a lot of street smarts--she can turn a phrase so its not quite a lie and adapts to situations quickly. She understands people to a point. Ask her why her peers are hostile towards her or why Genevieve helps people the way she does and Ash will have an immediate response. However despite witnessing cruelty and evil, Ash is at a loss to understand the motivations of the killer hunting the herbalists throughout the city.

And to be perfectly truthful I was a little sketchy on the reasoning as well. A lot is made of the Rhoi (Arun)'s life being put in jeporady...probably. The mystery of who is behind some of the attack's on Arun's heir is less complicated then Höst perhaps intended. I guessed the fiend fairly quickly though whether its because I watch a lot of detective shows or because Höst choreographed this person's involvement quite loudly is anyone's guess.

The attacks are only part of the larger conspiracy and this is when the mystery begins to break down for me. When we find out the "true" culprit things become a bit dicey motivation wise. Its not until late into the game that Ash and Co. make a connection between the culprit and what's going on now. And much of that is because of something said to Thornaster. If that phrase hadn't been said I'm not sure they would have made the parallels they did.

The best part of this book was the characters. Ash is a delight--sometimes a bit too arrogant of her abilities for her own good, but its justified. She's also not above a manipulation to get what she wants, which is good since its put to use throughout the book. Her banter with Thornaster is lively and makes their eventual mutual understanding much easier to see. Ash also keeps lively company with her "Huntsmen" and has some interesting conversations with a couple peers (though I'll admit they're given a much broader stroke of detail than the Huntsmen).

Overall I enjoyed Höst's newest work. Its not quite as defined as her other worlds, but there's an intriguing mythology at its roots and Ash was simply a joy to read.

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Way to start 2015 right. Excellent lady-protagonist, good action, funny banter, solid friendships. The romance was a bit out of left field and developed with ultra quickness, but whatever, I like kissing in books. It takes awhile to get the world setup, but I'd rather figure it out from the context than have my hand held and get tons of unnecessary exposition.

I'm excited to start plowing through all of the Höst books I picked up (on sale!) over the holiday. ( )

After reading several of Andrea K. Höst's novels, I've realised she is very good at putting her characters in situations that I find immediately compelling.

Hunting is about Ash, a runaway who spent the last eight years disguised as a boy, pretending to be the herbalist Genevieve's nephew, and running over the rooftops with her gang, the Huntsmen.
But when Genevieve is murdered, Ash loses her home and comes to the attention of those investigating the murder.

Ash is convinced she can fend from herself but Thornaster, the Visel of Pembury, is convinced that Ash is a 17 year old orphan boy and so he insists that Ash become his seruilis (essentially, a squire). Since Ash believes this will help her find Genevieve's killer, she accepts... for now.

This perhaps makes Hunting sound bleaker than it actually is. Even grieving, Ash is still prone to levity. And she's decidedly umimpressed with the honour of becoming a seruilis, much to the amusement of Thornaster..

"I have had two seruilisi before you," he explained. "I was just considering their reactions if they heard you glibly producing reasons why I should not spend too much effort instructing you in the sword" [...] "I take it you are accounted particularly good? And my predecessors would consider it nigh-on blasphemy for me not to fawn at your feet in gratitude at the mere idea of you attempting to pass this skill on?"
"Exactly."
She pretended to give this due consideration. "I suppose it would be impolite of me to suggest that maybe they were trying to keep on your good side?"
That opened the man's eyes wide. "Why cultivate politeness now?" he asked. "I wouldn't want you to abandon the habit of a lifetime out of any desire to please me."
"Oh, good. I thought for a moment I'd have to pretend I was enjoying myself."

Hunting reminded me of Tamora Pierce's novels, somewhat unsurprisingly, for both the whole "girl disguises herself as a boy" thing (which I thought was dealt with fairly believably), and the "girl investigates murders in a fantasy-world city" thing. I enjoyed it lots. ( )

Hunting is Andrea K Höst's latest release. Unlike the earlier books of hers that I've reviewed in the past (And All the Stars, The Touchstone Trilogy), Hunting is definitely fantasy, not science fiction. The blurb was what really got me keen to read this one:

Ash Lenthard doesn’t call herself a vigilante. She’s merely prone to random acts of derring-do, and occasional exhibitions of tomfoolery. Her friends, the Huntsmen, have never stepped over the line while patrolling the streets of Luinhall.

That was before the murder of Ash’s beloved guardian, Genevieve.

Now, Ash Lenthard is out for blood and even when the hunt sends her to the palace, on a collision course with a past identity she would do anything to forget, Ash cannot, will not, back down.

I have to say, when I first started reading, I was a little bit disappointed. Not because it was bad, but because it wasn't as funny as the blurb sounded like it would be. Mostly, this is because things start on a sombre note, with Ash's aunt dying and Ash's circumstances being turned on their head. It wasn't boring, it just wasn't what I expected. But then! From about the halfway point it really picked up and I found myself laughing out loud several times. I enjoyed the second half a lot more. (If I rated them separately, I'd give the first half 4 stars and the second half 5 stars.)

Ash is a runaway who dresses as a boy. Before the opening of Hunting she was living with Genevieve, a herbalist who took her in when she was younger (she's now 20 but dresses as a 17 year old boy). When Genevieve is killed, Ash swears vengeance but isn't allowed to go at it alone, partly because others think she's an underage boy. She is taken in by a foreign noble, Thornaster, who is investigating a spate of herbalist murders, and becomes his page-like servant. A lot of the humour comes from the banter and interactions between Ash and Thornaster, and there were some very amusing moments. I also liked that Höst didn't make Thornaster a strict or cruel person, because that would have changed the overall tone of Hunting significantly.

The world Höst has built is detailed and not limited to the one city most of the action takes place in. It was a little tricky at first to keep all the places and titles straight in my head and I think the earlier parts of the book could have been improved with more backstory/descriptions. On the other hand, the full details of Ash's past don't come to light for a while, and I quite liked the circumstances in which the full story was revealed (and of course I had some idea of what was coming from hints earlier on).

An aspect I particularly liked was the way in which so many little threads all came together in the end. There were some things which I took in stride as "just" being part of the set-up or backstory which turned out to be relevant to the main story. Hard to say more on this without spoilers. Also, a small thing but the fact that the main character's mentor was female not male was gratifying. And even though Ash was a girl dressed as a boy in a male-dominated society, there were actual other good female characters in the story (and only one of them was a laundry maid) who showed us other roles women could play in the society without having to dress as a man.

There was one particular aspect of worldbuilding that I found quite fascinating and that was the matter of religion. The gods in the world of Hunting are associated with the sun and moon (the two main gods) and planets (the minor gods which aren't important). When people die, one of three things happens: their soul goes straight to heaven carried by the sun god's butterflies, their soul is taken by the moon god's moths for cleansing before later going on to heaven or the gods decide the person's soul is beyond redemption and they're damned — trapped on the mortal coil indefinitely, before eventually deteriorating into nothing. Somewhat painfully. What this means is that after you die, assuming you don't die alone where no one finds you quickly enough, everyone knows what the gods ultimately thought of you. There was one character who was a horrible person and, as part of the backstory, was damned when he died. The repercussions on the family members that survived him, who generally weren't terrible people, were not insignificant. This aspect made me think a lot about how people might change or police their behaviour if they knew there were real afterlife consequences for them. Food for thought.

Finally, there was a romantic storyline but it didn't start until a good chunk of the way in. I liked that there were several possible love-interests and that it wasn't until Ash realised she had a crush on someone that I knew which way it would go.

I ended up enjoying Hunting a lot and, as the length of this review may suggest, getting more out of it than I necessarily expected. I recommend it to fans of fantasy, particularly the kind of fantasy that is confined to one city. I'm tempted to call it "ye olde urban fantasy". I think readers of Tamora Pierce's earlier books (I haven't read her later stuff) will also enjoy it, although I admit my reasoning may start and end with the "girl dressed as a boy" element.

4.5 / 5 stars

You can read more of my reviews on my blog. ( )