The Witch Hunter (Witch Hunter)

by Virginia Boecker

Sentenced to death after being wrongly accused of engaging in witchcraft, former witch hunter Elizabeth Grey receives unexpected assistance from a former enemy, a wizard who offers to save her life if she will break a deadly curse.

• ISBN10: 0316260533
• ISBN13: 9780316260534
• Publish Date: 28 April 2015
• Publish Status: Active
• Imprint: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
• Format: eBook
• Pages: 368
• Language: English

Reviews

[melanchalina]

Отзыв в моем блоге: http://beautiful-whim.blogspot.ru/2016/02/blog-post.html

Автор: Вирджиния Бокер
Серия: Охотница на ведьм
Книга 1: Ищейка
Перевод: официальный перевод
Экранизация: нет
Жанр: фэнтези, средневековое фэнтези
POV: от первого лица
Любовная линия: дуэт (девушка-парень)
Моя оценка: 3/10
Рейтинг на goodreads: 3.77
Прочитана: 23.02.2016
Дата выхода: 02.06.2015

Отличительные черты: средневековье, ведьмы и колдуны, охотники на ведьм

Рекомендовано к прочтению, если вам нравятся: сериалы "Мерлин", "Тайный круг", фильмы "Время ведьм", "Последний охотник на ведьм", "Охотники на ведьм", "Седьмой сын"

[Rinn]

I received a copy of this book for free from Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review. Also posted on my blog, Rinn Reads.

I was really excited to read The Witch Hunter, the first book in a new series by Virginia Boecker. I just can’t resist tales of witches, wizards and magic, and alternate history really appeals to me. And whilst The Witch Hunter was a fun, fantasy romp, it was rather predictable and unfortunately included a rather insufferable main character.

The reader is told that Elizabeth is an amazing witch hunter, one of the youngest ever and a female witch hunter to boot. Yet throughout the book she never really proves herself. The story opens with Elizabeth messing up a hunt, when she is sent to capture necromancers. We are then told of how she recently made a lot of mistakes. The reason for this is soon revealed, but at no point did I feel she deserved her status as a talented witch hunter.

I also really was not impressed with how she practically took a disliking to every female character she came into contact with. She even imagined pulling the ex-girlfriend of her crush by the hair – I mean, really?! How old are you? So as well as being naive and clumsy, Elizabeth is also judgmental and a lot of the time I just wanted to push her off her high horse.

Also – love triangle. Well, sort of. Elizabeth pines after two guys – her childhood best friend who is quite frankly an utter arse, and a healer that she meets after being accused of being a witch. There was a lot of wondering about her feelings and trying to ignore them, and honestly I couldn’t care less about the love interests. I was much more interested in the magic, and why it was forbidden – which was never actually explained, now I come to think of it.

The first 15% or so of the book went by very quickly – but that was also where the majority of the story happened. It slowed down significantly after that, although it was still enjoyable and easy to read, if predictable in places. I really liked the pseudo-medieval alternate England setting – at least that’s what I assume it was, being set in ‘Anglia’ with ‘Gaul’ across the Channel. Or rather, I liked the idea of it, as the world-building did not feel very detailed. This is a ‘I had higher expectations’ three stars, but chances are I will end up reading the sequel – not for Elizabeth, but for the magic and alternate England.

[shannonmiz]

I'm calling it on this one.

[ellieroth]

Reseña Completa: El Extraño Gato del Cuento

The Witch Hunter es una libro que siento no agradará a muchos, puedo ver que puntos serán criticados, detalles que en lo personal también me hicieron considerar que quizá este libro no merezca la calificación que le di. Lo curioso es que al mismo tiempo, son esos mismo detalles lo que me hicieron gustar mucho de este libro.

Para empezar tenemos una protagonista que en cierta forma su mundo gira alrededor de su mejor amigo. Sip, un chico. Ahora, mi primer pensamiento, y estoy segura que quizá el tuyo también fue: "Otra que cree que el mundo termina porque un hombre no le hace caso", sé lo que parece, pero no es así. Si has leído Since You've Been Gone (Morgan Matson), puedes tener una idea como la relación de Elizabeth y su amigo es un poco como la de Em y Sloane. Me hizo pensar ¿Por qué está bien cuando es solo entre mujeres y pero cuando sientes que necesitas un amigo (varón) automáticamente eres una necesitada-sin-personalidad? Creo que si bien es algo en lo que yo jamás caería (soy demasiado desinteresada de las personas, la verdad), pero siento que en este caso sí funciona. O sea, literalmente Elizabeth no tiene nadie en el mundo. Y no, la historia no gira en torno a como el tipo este no le hace caso.

Al terminar la historia sientes el avance de Elizabeth y estoy bastante segura, al menos tengo la esperanza que podamos ver mucho más de su desarrollo.

Luego, la segunda cosa que me dejó un poco descuadrada fue que... no sé como decirlo sin que sea spoiler. Solo diré que si bien no es del todo mencionado, es tratado con delicadeza por las personajes que esperaba y es tratado como me esperaba por los otros personajes que no merecen nada. Por una cosa personal, para mí es difícil leer ese tipo de experiencias. Tienen que leer The Witch Hunter para saber de qué hablo u.u

Si leíste mi reseña de Girl On a Wire (y si no le hiciste ¡Hazlo!), te hablé de Character Agency, ese libro era un ejemplo con la protagonista. Me tuvo pensando mucho tiempo como era posible que un personaje secundario pudiera desarrollar Character Agency, es secundario por algo, por lo general no tienen mucho desarrollo. Pero en The Witch Hunter he tenido la oportunidad de verlo en desarrollo, Fifer a mí parecer es una gran ejemplo, uno de mis personajes favoritos, sin duda alguna.

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[jnikkir]

This review can also be found at my blog, There were books involved...

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I'm going to start off this review by saying something that I did not expect I'd be able to say about The Witch Hunter. This book was... fun.

And I say that while acknowledging that "fun" is usually a good thing! But it was the type of "fun" that I wasn't expecting out of this book at all -- it was a fun adventure, with fun characters, quite a bit of humor, a pretty sweet (and light) romance... Do you see where I'm going with this?

The Witch Hunter is a fast-paced read filled with witches, swords, magic, kickass fight scenes, and danger around every corner. But on the whole, I felt like the book was pretty... light? It was a more lighthearted adventure than what I expected, what with the violence and gravity of the book's plot.

And I think that feelings stems from the characters -- they came across as pretty young, to me. Which was definitely not what I was expecting. I expected it to be dark. I expected the characters to be complex and for there to be FEELS and ANGST -- especially with the whole secret-witch-hunter-helping-witches-and-falling-for-a-healer thing. But while The Witch Hunter touched on those things, I feel like it only did so on the surface, and didn't get quite as intense/dark/complex as I expected it to. It was still very entertaining, but it fell short of my expectations, and of what it could have been, which is always a little disappointing.

Elizabeth Grey is 16, a witch hunter who's had years of brutal training to become so. She's a fighter, and fairly dedicated to the witch-hunting cause -- or at least, to Caleb, Elizabeth's best friend and fellow witch-hunter. The head Inquisitor, Blackwell, basically rescued her and Caleb when they had nowhere else to go, and she's super loyal to Caleb -- she loves him, as a friend and possibly something more... So she stays with him, and hunts witches, and everything is badass witch-hunting fun -- for a little while, at least. I liked Elizabeth quite a bit, but for me, she came across as fairly young (she's 16, but I expected her to act a little more mature), and her personality seemed to clash with her mad-witch-hunting-skills and brutal training.

Unfortunately, Elizabeth gets caught with something that results in her being accused of witchcraft, and she gets thrown into prison, awaiting execution.

At this point, I'm going to interject and mention one Elizabeth-related thing that really bothered me. It's slightly spoilery, but you learn it pretty early in the book, so: The reason Elizabeth is accused of being a witch is because she has witch's herbs. And the reason she has those herbs is to prevent her getting pregnant. Because the King has decided to start making a habit of calling her to his rooms so he can sleep with her. Against her will. So, he's been raping her. My problem with this, aside from the obvious? It seemed like that whole scenario was thrown in as an excuse for her to get caught and accused of being a witch. It was touched on a little bit later in the book, but only lightly, and briefly. It doesn't seem like she was greatly affected by it, other than the whole caught-and-accused-of-being-a-witch thing, and to have it be glossed over in such a way really felt... off, and its seeming unimportance made me rather uncomfortable. =/

Anyway, some time after she's thrown into prison, she's saved by the wizard Nicholas Perevil, who's been cursed -- and apparently, only Elizabeth can save him. To say much more would be to give away a lot of the plot of the story, so I'll just say that the book continues at a fast pace as we learn more about Nicholas, his true motives, and the sinister truth of the curse that's been laid on him.

Most importantly, Nicholas brings another group of characters into the story -- Fifer, George, and John; a witch, a Fool, and a healer. From Fifer, I really got the impression of a high-school girl who's on the fringe of the popular clique. She's a bit arrogant and abrasive, but I didn't not like her. George is sweet, sometimes funny, but not terribly well-developed beyond that. John is a healer, and the best-developed of the crew -- probably because he's Elizabeth's love interest. He's got a tragic past, a natural gift at healing, and he's tall and handsome and undeniably good.

Elizabeth and John's romance is sweet -- a slow burn, and admittedly adorable... But it just seemed to happen without much to support it. Unfortunately, I didn't feel any chemistry beyond the "oh that's cute" type. I think this was partly John's fault -- he's so perfect, and the relationship is fairly predictable. So, while I was all "awww they're cute," I also didn't venture anywhere near "holy crap I ship this so hard" territory, if you know what I mean.

I think my main issue with The Witch Hunter was that I didn't think the characters were developed enough for me to appreciate them as individuals, let alone to be impacted hugely by their actions -- their shifts in allegiance, their loyalty, their betrayals... There was a lot of telling regarding those sorts of things -- characters "just knowing" that another character feels a certain way -- which didn't help. I didn't feel the emotions behind it, which led to my lack of investment.


In conclusion...
The Witch Hunter was definitely entertaining, and I'm glad I read it! I just wish the characters had been a little better-developed, and that I'd been able to really become invested in them and their stories. If you're looking for a fun, fast-paced adventure that intertwines fantasy and a cool historical-fiction (think Salem Witch Trials) vibe, I'd still recommend checking this one out.

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There were books involved...