Madeline MacFaddin, or 'Mad Mac' to her book fans
everywhere, remembers summers spent in blissful Ticonderoga
Falls. Now that her writing has reached a serious block,
her marriage has ended in a devastating divorce and Maddie
feels more lost than she has ever in her life. The famous
horror novelist has found that the words no longer come to
her mind, the characters are not pictured, and nothing is
going right. A short reprieve in a childhood memory sounds
just like the medicine she needs. Unfortunately, Maddie has
suppressed memories of a creature of the dark that 'found'
her when she was a child. Suppressed memories have a way of
coming back to haunt you, as Maddie is about to find out.
Mr. Ash has run this small town and the acres surrounding
it for longer than anyone human can remember. In one form
or another Ash has had his hand, or rather his mark, on the
humans in his little corner of the world. Once a year the
winged-beasts of the dark feast upon humanity. It is the
feast that calls them, and the humans run in fear that they
may be the next victim. Untrue to his nature, Ash once
saved a girl and saving her life has been a decision that
has haunted him ever since. Never did he dare to hope, dare
to dream that one day Maddie would waltz back into his
life.
This book threw me for a loop. In the first half of the
book, I struggled with what was going on and whose side of
the story was I reading. I think that had the story
stayed focused between three characters it would have made
more sense to me than it did, but every chapter was done in
first person of another character. At least five characters
telling the story made it harder to follow. The initial
struggle had me wondering about
which plot to follow, what was going to happen next, and
what exactly was happening in this book? I found it
confusing, yet I remained intrigued wanting to know what
was going to happen next!
As for the plots, here again there were several. First,
there was the main plot involving Maddie and Ash and the
fact that she reentered his life during the Feast. There
was a little romance going on between Maddie and Ash, but
it was not over-developed and minor. Then there was also a
subplot with another group of demons that were trying to
take over Ash's home. This power play was really just a
distraction for me and didn't really enrich the story.
Finally, my focus was switched to the dog. Merrie Destefano
clearly created an awesome character with Samwise. I loved
the dog turned beast, but still portrayed as a protector
for his family. I thought that this was the best part of
the story. Samwise was a brilliant idea.
There were also some darker bits to this story that I
loved. They were dark enough that it could have been
considered horror, but not gory enough the book needed to
be. While I felt that the plots and narrative were
confusing, by the end of the book I felt that it was a good
story. I really enjoyed the fact that the demons stayed
demons. Destefano did not make them pretty or more likeable
for our senses. They were the bad creatures and they were
not ashamed of what they were, nor did they want to be
anything different. The fact that the demons stayed true to
horror was a definite bonus to this intriguing book.
Lord of the Hunt, Ash, watches over his land, bound by an
ancient pact to protect the human mortals and a curse that
binds him to those same woods.
Fleeing a broken marriage
and writer’s block, author Maddie MacFadden returns to the
autumn woods that sustained her as a child, searching for
the inspiration for a new fable for her devoted fans.
Instantly they are drawn together, human woman and immortal
male, though it is forbidden. For Ash’s kind hunt humanity,
harvesting the stolen dreams of humans to stay alive. As
Halloween approaches, so does the Harvest. And with her
storytelling magic, Maddie is the prime target.
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