Hunted

by Meagan Spooner

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"Beauty knows the Beast's forest in her bones - and in her blood.

Here in the wilderness Yeva is under no pressure to make idle chatter with vapid baronessas... or to submit to marrying a wealthy gentleman. Here she feels one with the ebb and flow of life. Here she is home.

But when Yeva's father 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 cursed valley, a ruined castle, and a world of creatures that Yeva's only heard about in fairy tales. A world that can bring her ruin, or salvation."

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This... is a book that I found several years ago, just as it was released in 2017. Then I waited for what felt like forever for it to become available as paperback... and then it ended up in my to-read pile, for some reason, and I still haven't read it, until now.

I remember I was super excited for this, and as I started reading, I had really high expectations.

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SPOILER WARNING

Yeva and her father and two sisters (sound familiar?) live as well-off merchants in a small town, until her father loses everything with a risky trade venture. Ruined, the family sells everything they have left and move out into the woods, to her father's old hunting cabin.

As their father takes hunting back up as a trade, having been famous for his skills before he became a merchant, he disappears for days or weeks at a time, leaving his daughters and a single servant to fend for themselves - and so Yeva spends her days hunting for small game in the forest around the cabin.

The only one who comes to visit is Solmir (Gaston), who comes to propose to Yeva, even though they've barely spoken to each other. Though she likes Solmir, she hesitates, in part because one of her sisters wants him for herself, and in part because she's hesitant about marriage as a whole. She doesn't want to be tied down, enjoys her freedom in the woods too much. But Solmir is a hunter as well, and seems to understand, so she finally says yes.

Then the family's hunting dog comes back alone, and Yeva sets out to find her father, whom she finds dead in the woods. At the scene, she meets the Beast, and naturally assumes he's behind her father's death. Overcome with grief, she attacks him, they fight, and she's knocked out.

She wakes up in the Beast's dungeon.

Eventually we find out that the Beast needs her help to hunt down some unnamed monster, and he trains her.

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My favorite thing about the book is without a doubt the Beast's POVs, which are soo interesting. The writing is so raw and animalistic, and I love the sort of battle between his human and wolf side. And certain parts are actually really beautiful.

I really liked this book. It was well written, and had a well developed and thought-through plot, even if I maybe disagree with a few things, and thought the romance element maybe lacked a little (I'm a sucker for that stuff). Though I do understand how the latter might be a bit difficult to really work in without it getting icky since he's an actual beast for the most part of this retelling, I think it was well on its way and just didn't quite make it. I also think that the way she left was way too sudden - neither of them, or me, had time to work out everything, and she basically just escapes home (with the Beast's permission), and... Hmm, I'm not sure how to phrase it... I just would have liked them to have more time together after she realized that he was not the reason her father died. Since she's been holding on to all this hatred for this very reason, it would have been nice if she'd had time to think things through, and spend a little time with him without those emotions, and to maybe see him with other eyes than before. Instead she cries herself to sleep and goes home as soon as she wakes up.

The ending was OK, I guess, though nothing special. It absolutely made sense, don't get me wrong - it just wasn't fantastic.

Yeva and Eoven (the Beast, now back to human) go back to the town and live with her sisters. It does say that "eventually maybe" they would wed, or move back to the woods, or go on adventures. Which is fine, and it was a really original ending, and well written like the rest of the book. I think it's just a me-issue, where I'd really have liked them to go back to live in the ruined castle in the Beast's valley. It feels weird that they go back to town and sort of-kinda maybe get a cabin there of their own, when the whole book, Yeva's been longing and longing for the woods, and been drawn to the magic there. It just seems super out of character for both her and Eoven, which left me feeling a bit... "Huh?"

But overall, it was a really great read, and I would absolutely recommend it! It was a fun and beautiful read.

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⭐⭐⭐⭐