Warning: If you haven’t read “Hunted” by Arthur Slade, don’t read this book review unless you don’t mind spoilers!
Happy August, everyone! I hope your July was great, and that August is just as awesome!
I’m back with another book review, and this time it’s “Hunted” by Arthur Slade! Here’s a summary so we know what it’s about:
“Librarian. Assassin. Vampire.
Amber Fang enjoys life’s simple pleasures – a good book, a glass of wine and, of course, a great meal.
Raised to eat ethically, Amber dines only on delicious, cold-blooded killers. But being sure they’re actually killers takes time… research… patience.
It’s a good thing Amber’s a librarian. Her extraordinary skills help her hunt down her prey, seek out other vampires, and stay on the trail of her mother, missing now for two years. One day she stalks a rather tasty-looking murderer and things get messy. Very messy. Amber, the hunter, becomes the hunted.
And then, from out of nowhere, the perfect job offer: Assassin. She’d be paid to eat the world’s worst butchers. How ideal.
Until it isn’t.”
Worldbuilding development: 3.5 out of 5
Character development: 3 out of 5
I was very excited about the concept of this book. A library student who’s a vampire AND becomes an assassin? It sounded very unique and unlike anything I’d seen before. Mainly because 1. I don’t read a lot of books where librarians or those studying library science are the main characters and 2. Combining that with vampirism and assassination is definitely unlike anything I’ve read before. However, I was rather let down by the book focusing more on the vampire and assassin aspects far more than the librarian. I was hoping for the main character, Amber, to use her library-student strengths of research more than just killing a few prey in the beginning prior to gaining the assassin role, but sadly we don’t get much research into how she finds all the information and research on her prey in the first place.
However, I did find Amber herself to be interesting to read overall. She is not the most likeable person, and definitely not someone you want to cross or else she might eat you, but her snappy, sassy dialogue when interacting with other characters is pretty fun to read at times. Unfortunately, she doesn’t go through a lot of self-development other than seeing her overall feelings over trying to learn more about her biological mother and father. As for the other characters, there isn’t a lot of development in them—not even Dermot, who acts as Amber’s potential love interest/ally/the overall secondary/supporting character.
Romance development: 2 out of 5
I don’t feel a lot of developing chemistry between Dermot and Amber. I think the lack of individual development in both characters didn’t help their romantic development, and though they had a few ‘romantic’ moments, it was hard for me to pick up what really interested each other in leaning towards the romantic side of their relationship.
Plot development: 3 out of 5
Overall, the plot was slow in establishing what was going on in the beginning. For the first several chapters, the story lingers on setting up Amber’s situation as a vampire for longer than necessary. However, by midway through the book, the plot went at a much faster pace for the rest of the book. I did feel that the ending was a bit anticlimactic and on a cliffhanger to set up for the next book. Despite these parts, the plot was understandable overall.