I read Kate Quinn’s, The Alice Network, and loved it. I wish I could offer up the same delight for her latest, The Huntress.
A time and POV weaving story, The Huntress features three protagonists and their separate lives/histories that collide in dramatic and near-fatal fashion.
Ian Graham seeks justice. Nina Markova seeks revenge. Jordan McBride simply wants herself and her dad to be happy. Their conflicting desires revolve around one woman; someone stands to lose.
For me, the continually changing narrative and settings didn’t work. I found myself plodding along, skimming paragraphs of arguments between characters, seeking something to ground me to the story. I was not invested in the characters, especially Jordan. And interesting as Nina’s background was, she fell flat for me. Ian was perhaps the only one I found compelling, perhaps because he seemed the most-well rounded and real. A truly tortured yet heroic soul, compared to Nina’s ruthless confidence and Jordan’s hollow insecurity.
I thought perhaps it was the interweaving past-present and POV style that inhibited my enjoyment, but then I remembered I read Kate Morton’s The Clockmaker’s Daughter and loved it, so I don’t think it was story style, so much as the story itself that simply did not work for me.
Reading is so very subjective, and one person’s 5-star delightful or compelling read is another’s ho-hum, so please do not let that stop you from reading it. Your experience may well be different. 3-stars.
Deborah