Title: Hunted
Author: Meagan Spooner
Genre: YA fairy tale retelling, fantasy
Pages: Hardback, 374
ISBN: 978-0-06-242228-6
Opening Lines: "We always know before the change comes. When the storm approaches, we feel it in the thickness of the air, the tension in the earth awaiting the blanket of snow."
Rating
"Beauty knows the Beast's forest in her bones—and in her blood.
"She knows that the forest hold secrets and that her father is the only hunter who's ever come close to discovering them.
"But Yeva's grown up far from he father's old lodge, raised to be part of the city's highest caste of aristocrats. Still, she's never forgotten the feel of a bow in her hands, and she's spent a lifetime longing for the freedom of the hunt.
"So when her father loses his fortune and moves Yeva and her sisters back to the outskirts of town, Yeva is secretly relieved. Out in the wilderness, there's no pressure to make idle chatter with vapid baronessas . . . or to submit to marrying a wealthy gentlemen.
"But Yeva's father's misfortune may have cost him his mind, and when he goes missing in the woods, Yeva sets her sights on one prey: the creature he'd been obsessively tracking just before his disappearance.
"Deaf to her sisters' protests, Yeva hunts this strange Beast back into his own territory—a curse valley, a ruined castle, and a world of creatures that Yeva's heard about only in fairy tales. A world that can bring her ruin—or salvation.
"Who will survive: the Beauty, or the Beast?"
~ Jacket copy
One of my coworkers suggested this book over winter break. Unfortunately, despite teaching English, it is hard for me to sit down and commit to a book. (Is it possible to lose my love of reading because of my job?) Even though I have been reading through horror—slowly!—my husband suggested taking a break before I hit burn out. Somehow, this book kept coming back to the forefront of my mind.
For those of you who know me or have been following this blog, fairy retellings are one of my guilty reading pleasures. However, many of them seem to follow similar tired tropes found in ever other retelling or YA romance and never dare to try something new. Even though this is a Beauty & the Beast story, Meagan Spooner takes on elements from Russian fairy tales to add depth to her story.
In many ways, Hunted is like any other retelling—merchant father loses his fortune and ends up in the clutches of the Beast. As a way to save her family, Beauty ends up becoming the Beast's prisoner and falling in love with him. That is where the similarities end. Yeva—to her family, Beauty—is her father's daughter. She loves to hunt and craves the freedom found in the wood. Despite the hardships it will mean for her sisters, Yeva is secretly happy about the loss of her father's fortune. It means living in her father's hunting cabin in the woods.
When her father's faithful hunting dog fails to come home without him, Yeva casts off all vestiges of status to become her father's savior. However, she find something she does not expect—the Beast her father has talked about throughout her childhood.
At the onset, Hunted is a slow-burn. Spooner does a wonderful job setting the stage for everything to follow; however, for fans of fairy tales, it is sometimes hard to slog through the known and familiar. Hunted also lacks world building. It relies on the character development of the Yeva and the Beast.
The ending, while beautifully written, was expected due to the hints dropped by the author. However, despite that, it was an amazingly rich story.
