Early Review--The Hunt by Chloe Neill

From the New York Times bestselling author of the Chicagoland Vampires Novels--the hunter becomes the hunted in a New Orleans devastated by a Paranormal war....
When bounty hunter Liam Quinn discovered that Claire Connolly was a Sensitive and infected with magic, he should have turned her in to be locked up in the prison district known as Devil's Isle. Instead, he helped her learn to control her power and introduced her to an underground group of Paranormals and humans who know the truth about the war and those who fought it. 

Now the weight of Liam's own secrets has forced him into hiding. When a government agent is killed and Claire discovers that Liam is the prime suspect, she races to find him before the government can. But she'll discover proving his innocence is no simple matter. Their enemies are drawing closer, and time is running out....

I received this book from the publisher in exchange for a voluntary and honest review. I was in no way compensated for this review.

The Hunt is the latest action filled installment that continues Chloe Neill’s newest series, Devil’s Isle, in a magic ridden New Orleans. For years there have been strives with paranormals and “normals”, with magic basically being banned everywhere.

Despite Claire’s efforts in helping Containment out a few weeks ago, she’s being hunted for possessing magic, through no fault of her own. Meanwhile, Liam has been AWOL due to his own encounter of gaining magic. When there’s a recent murder of a Containment agent, all signs point to Liam as the murderer, though Claire and her friends know that he couldn’t possibly have done it.

Claire will have to go find Liam to see if he had ideas on who would want to frame him, but she’s still a little sore at him for leaving. Naturally, things turn out be way bigger than just a random murder of a Containment agent. We gain a little more insight to Claire’s past within this one, which is always great for character development.

I felt like the mystery in this one was done fairly well, but I kind of missed when the murder mystery took a backseat. Suddenly, there doesn’t seem to be a concern in finding out who killed the Containment agent and the focus shifts to our next Big Bad. I’m not sure if we were meant to infer who the true killer was or if I totally just missed the reveal. I was reading this during some stressful days last week and into this week, so it’s a possibility! But we do realize that this murder is really only a stepping stone into the Big Bad news.

The characters of this world continue to amaze me! They are all so fleshed out and given such depth! I love Claire and her strong-willed determination to find Liam and do what’s right by her friends. I love Liam for his strength and desire to keep Claire safe at all costs. I love Gavin for his wit and charm. Then there’s Moses…who’s just 100% Moses! Everyone in here has wonderful qualities to them that make them for entertaining reading material!

While I wouldn’t say this one was quite action packed, I can say that it was still tension packed and a pretty well paced book! There’s more tension and discovery in this one as we first search for Liam and then onto the true murderer and then there’s the whole discovery of the other Big Bad. Tension is rife in this one! It does make the pacing a little slower, but honestly, I didn’t mind it at all since the characters make it worth it in the end!

We get just the tiniest bit of romance in this one! I remember rooting for Claire and Liam since the get-go, but alas, struggle to remember their vibes from the previous book. In this one things are definitely tense and intense between them. They still have their issues to work through, but that seems almost normal with any couple!

The ending to this one was quite the shocker! Despite being bombarded with other shocks throughout this book, the ending was definitely one that lends your jaw to drop! I’ll be eagerly awaiting the next installment of the series because I can tell things are far from over at this point!

The Hunt was yet another example of why I love Urban Fantasy so much! Factoring in Chloe’s generous sense of humor, kickbutt action, an intense romance, and of course paranormal intrigue, you have the makings of a perfectly GREAT read!


Overall Rating 4.5/5 stars
 

The Hunt releases September 26, 2017