#BookReview Witch Hunter by @virgboecker #YA

#BookReview Witch Hunter by Virginia Boecker, available in eBook and paperback from Amazon UK and Amazon US.

Author: Virginia Boecker

Category: YA Fantasy/Medieval

My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Review:

Elizabeth Grey is a lethal fighting machine, trained as a witch hunter to protect the land from the evil witches, wizards, and necromancers. When she’s thrown in jail for carrying herbs, she suddenly finds that her enemies become her allies, and everything she once believed is a lie.

I loved Elizabeth’s character. She’s this tough killer who is top of her class when it comes to catching the magically inclined, but you also see glimpses of this vulnerable young girl. She doesn’t trust people apart from her longtime friend, Caleb, and so when she has to rely on her ‘enemies’ we see how she grows in her maturity.

Fifer is probably one of my other favourite characters. I wasn’t sure about her at first, but I warmed to her humour, sass, and loyalty. The relationship between her and Elizabeth is well crafted and not at all forced. They come from different backgrounds, and yet they must find common ground. There are a couple of scenes with the girls that I found funny and endearing.

Witch Hunter is an easy read with plenty of action to keep you hooked. The plot is reasonably fast-paced with just the right amount of twists. Set in medieval times, you get a true sense of the period with Virginia’s descriptive prose and can feel the horror of how people accused of witchcraft were killed. The storyline is wrapped up satisfactorily at the end, but it leaves just enough threads for a sequel (which I instantly rushed out to buy).

Blurb:

Sixteen-year-old Elizabeth Grey doesn’t look dangerous. A tiny, blonde, wisp of a girl shouldn’t know how to poison a wizard and make it look like an accident. Or take out ten necromancers with a single sword and a bag of salt. Or kill a man using only her thumb. But things are not always as they appear. Elizabeth is one of the best witch hunters in Anglia and a member of the king’s elite guard, devoted to rooting out witchcraft and bringing those who practise it to justice. And in Anglia, the price of justice is high: death by burning.

When Elizabeth is accused of being a witch herself, she’s arrested and thrown in prison. The king declares her a traitor and her life is all but forfeit. With just hours before she’s to die at the stake, Elizabeth gets a visitor – Nicholas Perevil, the most powerful wizard in Anglia. He offers her a deal: he will free her from prison and save her from execution if she will track down the wizard who laid a deadly curse on him.

As Elizabeth uncovers the horrifying facts about Nicholas’s curse and the unwitting role she played in its creation, she is forced to redefine the differences between right and wrong, friends and enemies, love and hate… and life and death.

The first book in an incredible new series set in a fantastical medieval world.