Hello, Book Nerds! Welcome back to Reading Has Ruined My Life or welcome if you are new. As always, my name is Hannah and I am your captain on this journey into my bookcases.
I wish to bring you some more historical fiction this week. We aren’t going back to the Tudor era this time, we’re going to stay a little more recent and hop back to the 1940s and 50s. I have a great read for you today. I’ve had this book on my shelves since I was in college. I’ve only read it once, loved practically every minute of it, and have been waiting for a chance to reread it. Get excited!
Please welcome to the stage The Huntress by Kate Quinn.
As always, a spoiler alert is in order. If you’ve read any other review on RHRML then you know I love to spoil the entirety of the books I read. This is your one and only warning. I also must issue a trigger and content warning. The Huntress makes mention of child murder. The story’s villain is a Nazi who is responsible for murdering a group of children, and as I’ve stated which side of the war the villain was on it should come as no surprise when I say this book discusses antisemitism as well. With that, let’s get to the synopsis.
The Huntress follows three main characters: Jordan McBride, Nina Markova, and Ian Graham. Nina Markova grew up in the wilderness of Russia. She feared nothing save for drowning and dreamed of nothing but flying. As a young woman she left home to achieve her dreams of flying, and achieve them she does. As Russia enters World War II so does Nina. She joins the war as a pilot in the infamous all-female night bomber regiment known as The Night Witches. But when Nina is downed behind enemy lines, she comes face to face with the titular Huntress and it takes all her might and wits to survive.
Ian Graham was a war correspondent for England during the war, but now that’s it over he’s decided to change careers. He decides that he wants to hunt down war criminals. And all because of the Huntress who took the life of Ian’s younger brother during the war. For years there are no leads on her until 1950 when the search takes him to America; Boston to be exact.
Which leads us to our third main character: Jordan McBride. Jordan begins this story at 17-years-old when her father brings home his new fiancée, Anneliese Weber, a widow from Germany with a four-year-old daughter Ruth. Jordan has no issue with her father dating, nor does she have any issue with Anneliese. At least at first. Anneliese seems like a nice, soft-spoken woman who wishes to put the war behind her, but the more Jordan gets to know her, the more things seem to be off. Like Anneliese putting an Iron Cross in her wedding bouquet.
It should come as no surprise when I tell you all that our three main characters team up to find the Huntress. It’s a long hunt to find her, but they won’t stop until she’s in cuffs and being extradited back to Europe to face her crimes. But will they all make it out alive? Or will the Huntress put an end to them all? Find out in The Huntress.
Right off the bat, I want to say this book is phenomenal. It’s a page turner with memorable characters and a gripping story. It kept me on the edge of my seat even though I had read it before. It helps that the last time I read The Huntress was back in 2019 and I have forgotten basically everything since then, but my point still stands.
I want to talk about the characters before I get to the story itself. I greatly appreciate how vastly different all three main characters are in personality and sleuthing tactics. They’re all reaching for the same goal, which is to stop the Huntress, but they have very different ways they want to go about it given their personalities. Nina is violent and impulsive, while Ian is methodical and by the book, and Jordan doesn’t really know what she’s doing but she definitely can tell when something or someone is suspect. These vastly different personalities make it extremely easy to differentiate which character a chapter is focusing on.
The Huntress is one of the few multiple point-of-view books in which I do not need a note at the start of a chapter as to who the chapter's POV character is. I always want that note because it’s easy to confuse readers (i.e. me) with who the POV character is when it’s constantly changing, but this book doesn’t need it. That’s how well written and memorable the characters are. The same can be said about the villain. The Huntress is a truly terrifying villain. She’s not a villain one sees a lot any more. She’s pure evil, she doesn’t have a sympathetic backstory, she’s not morally gray, she’s merciless, she’s the best at being the worst; I hate her with every fiber of my being and anxiously awaited her downfall.
Let’s look at the story now. It’s memorable, a page turner, written so well that it not only balances multiple point-of-view characters but it also perfectly balances jumping between the past and present. Not to mention, the pacing is perfection and the plot is thrilling. All three main characters’s stories are expertly woven together. There is nothing about this story that I did not enjoy. Note that The Huntress is not about readers figuring out who the Huntress is, I’m sure it's obvious who she is based off what I’ve stated in this review, this book is about the main characters fighting for justice. My only issue is how long it takes Ian, Nina, and Jordan to team up to take on the Huntress. It takes far too long, and while the ending is not rushed in the slightest, I do believe it would have been more satisfying had the main characters teamed up sooner than the last 30 to 50 pages; that’s just my personal opinion.
Very rarely do I come into a review and say, “you need to read this book.” But I’m going to say that today. How does that old saying go? “Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.” Yeah, this book is a good reminder of what occurred not even a hundred years ago. I think The Huntress is a book that deserves, no needs, to be read by everyone.
I also think The Huntress needs to be made into a mini-series. The story is just that good! If done well, it could clean house at the Emmys. I would watch the show a hundred times over; just saying.
And with that, I shall bid you all adieu. I shall see you all again next week with another new review. If you can’t wait that long then you can always check out my podcast Nothing to See Hear. It stars me and two of my dearest friends as we talk everything from Disney to Scooby-Doo to ghosts and cryptids, and weird moments and people from history; perhaps one day I will talk about The Night Witches. Anyway, there is sure to be something that will strike your fancy.
Until next time, stay safe, wash your hands, and read some good books for me.
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