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A review by shanaqui
The Wild Hunt by Emma Seckel
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
The Wild Hunt is a very October sort of book, not just because of when it's set but because it breathes a chilly damp atmosphere, a feeling of the cold starting to creep in under an untucked shirt and down your jacket collar. It's damp leaves and mud and besides all that, isolation on an island where mysterious things happen and everyone seems ever so lightly lost all the time.
Besides the creep factor, it's a sad book, dealing with the fallout of a war that many people, even non-combatants, find hard to leave behind. All of them are marked by it, all of their relationships are cut across by it, and none of them seem able to get past it.
The main characters we follow are Iain and Leigh, as they become drawn together by the disappearance of a young boy they both befriended in their own ways. Everybody else gives up on searching for him, but Leigh and Iain push further afield, to the secret places of the island, desperate to find some sign of him. I found the way their friendship grows both completely predictable and exactly appropriate.
I was a little more surprised by the way the community turns out and how things develop there; I don't want to say too much, of course, but I hadn't expected things to work out that way.
Despite everything that I said about the chilly atmosphere, there's hope in this book too -- in Leigh and Iain's determination, and particularly in Leigh. As it draws to a close, you can see healing begin, despite the darkness. It's a quiet and slow story, and worth it.
Besides the creep factor, it's a sad book, dealing with the fallout of a war that many people, even non-combatants, find hard to leave behind. All of them are marked by it, all of their relationships are cut across by it, and none of them seem able to get past it.
The main characters we follow are Iain and Leigh, as they become drawn together by the disappearance of a young boy they both befriended in their own ways. Everybody else gives up on searching for him, but Leigh and Iain push further afield, to the secret places of the island, desperate to find some sign of him. I found the way their friendship grows both completely predictable and exactly appropriate.
I was a little more surprised by the way the community turns out and how things develop there; I don't want to say too much, of course, but I hadn't expected things to work out that way.
Despite everything that I said about the chilly atmosphere, there's hope in this book too -- in Leigh and Iain's determination, and particularly in Leigh. As it draws to a close, you can see healing begin, despite the darkness. It's a quiet and slow story, and worth it.