I’ve been on a bit of a vampire kick lately, so when I picked up Hunted, I was curious where the story would lead. No lie, there was definitely something very alluring about the cover, and its short length made it a great afternoon read. The story comes together quite quickly and has a fascinating premise surrounding it. The take on the vampires was also interesting, and I’m very curious as to how this series is going to grow and change. It leaves you satisfied and wanting to read more, and if you like vampire or paranormal romance, then this should definitely be on your TBR!
Let’s get into our story. On the hundredth anniversary of her turning, Edith Dorset joins her family and friends into the Heartsong Clan’s LARP recruitment event. It’s there that she meets Dan Paxton and his older brother, Darren. What she doesn’t know is that these two young men are hunters, and Darren is trying to get his younger brother out of what he considers to be trouble. As the weekend progresses, vampires start being killed and Dan has a target put on his back as the culprit. In an effort to save him, Edith loses her protection from her vampire clan, so it will be up to Darren to help her…if he doesn’t wind up putting her in even more danger with their forbidden attraction.
There’s quite a lot to cover in this story for how short it feels. To start with, readers will get a bit of background history to Edith and her turning. There’s a lot more going on with her than there seems at the beginning, and her straight-laced attitude comes off very prim and proper. I wasn’t terribly impressed with her at the beginning, but she does grow on you as she begins interacting with her daughters as well as with Dan and Darren. I wasn’t expecting her to have a somewhat impulsive nature, but it becomes more apparent as the story goes on. She’s not necessarily satisfied with her lot as a vampire, but she makes due.
I honestly can’t lie, Darren comes off as a royal prick for a good portion of this book. I didn’t care for him as a love interest and he just rubbed me the wrong way for a good portion of the book. It lessened toward the end, but unfortunately not soon enough. On the flipside, his younger brother was a fountain of personality and I felt it would have been interesting to get his perspective considering that he was at the center of all the conflict.
This brings me to the romance bit of the story. I am always down for a good romance, and unfortunately this one didn’t spark joy for me. I can’t get into too many details without spoiling the story, but it generally boils down to not loving the dynamic between Edith and Darren, partially the alpha male/docile female trope.
Something that didn’t sit right with me, and this is simply my opinion, were Edith’s adopted daughters. Despite the fact that they are Cambodian, the characters are white-washed and given the names Hope and Angel, and Edith uses their “native” names only when she’s upset or serious. It doesn’t serve the story, the characters, and the details that they share about them don’t ever come up again. The authors could have made the characters white, and the effect would have been the same (again, my opinion).
The premise of this story was interesting. The vampires host a LARP of the conflict between humans and vampires, with the goal of finding people interested in the vampire life. It seems like a very easy way to find new recruits, while also avoiding the scathing hunters who seek to bring about their downfall. Vampires are only allowed to turn a certain number of recruits, and their lives seem pretty normalized in terms of having rationed blood and things like that.
What I really enjoyed was the mystery surrounding who was murdering the vampires in the clan. There’s a lot of speculation as to who could be responsible, and I feel like the authors do an excellent job with the reveal and building up to what the next story will be. Overall, I enjoyed the read and look forward to seeing what they’ll write next.
Hunted is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore.
Will you be picking up Hunted? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis | Goodreads
On the hundredth anniversary of being turned into a vampire, Edith joins her adopted daughters and their friends at the Heartsong Clan’s annual “vampires vs humans” LARP recruitment event where she meets an eager Dan Paxton. Dan’s older brother and vampire hunter, Darren, thinks he is merely chaperoning a trip to a nerd convention, but when Darren discovers Dan missing, he follows the only lead he has to the Heartsong Clan’s residence on Tombstone Row. He’s determined to keep his Hunter instincts in check, rescue his brother, and make a clean escape. When an impromptu late-night encounter leads Darren and Edith to be honest with each other about who and what each of them are, Edith longs to keep Darren and his brother close, even though it goes against Clan rules. The two start to grow closer as they seek out the truth from Edith’s Sire, Mr. Heartsong, and soon Darren is finding it harder than he thought to snuff out Edith and her family.
