Review: The Great Hunt by Wendy Higgins

Title: The Great Hunt (Eurona Duology #1)
Author: Wendy Higgins 
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release date: March 8th 2016
Source: Edelweiss
Format: eARC

Rating: 3/5

Buy on:  Amazon | B&N | BookDepository

Kill the beast. Win the girl.

A strange beast stirs fear in the kingdom of Lochlanach, terrorizing towns with its brutality and hunger. In an act of desperation, a proclamation is sent to all of Eurona—kill the creature and win the ultimate prize: the daughter of King Lochson’s hand in marriage.

Princess Aerity understands her duty to the kingdom though it pains her to imagine marrying a stranger. It would be foolish to set her sights on any particular man in the great hunt, but when a brooding local hunter, Paxton Seabolt, catches her attention, there’s no denying the unspoken lure between them…or his mysterious resentment.

Paxton is not keen on marriage. Nor does he care much for spoiled royals and their arcane laws. He’s determined to keep his focus on the task at hand—ridding the kingdom of the beast and protecting his family—yet Princess Aerity continues to challenge his notions with her unpredictability and charm. But as past secrets collide with present desires, dire choices threaten everything Paxton holds dear.

Inspired by the Grimm Brothers’ tale, “The Singing Bone,” New York Times bestselling author Wendy Higgins delivers a dark fantasy filled with rugged hunters, romantic tension, outlawed magic, and a princess willing to risk all to save her people. 

The Great Hunt is the first book in the Eurona Duology and it´s the retelling of the The Singing Bone.

The main story is about the kingdom of Lochlanach that´s being terrorized by a beast that has killed violently many citizens and the king had sent armed forces to kill this beast but so far they have not succeeded and it seems that the beast is invincible, that´s why the king decides to do a great hunt and proclaims in all the neighboring kingdoms that who achieves the kill of the beast will win the hand in marriage of the crown princess. To the hunt arrive hunters from other realms and from Lochlanach enter to the competition Paxton Seabolt and his younger brother Tiern.

Tiern expectation is to destroy the beast that terrorized his kingdom and perhaps marry the princess, while his brother Paxton is only interested in ending the beast.

Meanwhile Princess Aerity accepts the decree of her father the king and she forgets her dreams of marrying for love. But when visiting hunters to give them words of encouragement there is one hunter that catches her eye, Paxton, a very handsome and mysterious man that´s very rude.

Another part of the story tells about magical people called "lashed" that as a result of a "lashed" that murderer the king of another kingdom years ago and try to get the power to all the magical people, when he was defeated, a decree was made that all the "lashed" of all the kingdoms had to be registered and practice magic only when they were permitted or otherwise be executed. When this story begins the "lashed" are repudiated, not accepted in their communities and they can be recognize by a purple marks that appears on their nails every time they practice magic.

About the romance,.........in the truth I did not feel, they´re just two young people who are attracted to each other, but I did not believe the love between them, as Paxton looks like bad boy and is quite rude to Aerity.

The story is told from multiple points of views, the main being of Paxton and Princess Aerity. Some point of views felt unnecessary and I skim read them.

The Great Hunt has adventure, some action scenes, with some romance (if you can call it that). But it also touches the subject of fear, mistrust and stigma to a certain group of people for something evil done by their ancestors.