Britta Flannery is the daughter of a Bounty Hunter to the King. She grows up learning how to hunt and catch not only animals but criminals alongside Cohen who is apprenticing with her father. As they grow up, she falls in love with Cohen but he is destined to replace her father in the privileged spot as Bounty Hunter. When her father is off on a job, he is murdered, leaving Britta alone in the cabin she lived in with her father. Starving, she illegally hunts on the King’s land and is caught. Thrown in the dungeon, she is given a choice. Die for poaching or hunt her father’s killer. It sounds like an easy choice, but Britta wavers because she is told all evidence points to her one time friend Cohen. Believing their evidence she begins the hunt, which turns into a journey of discovery and learns more about herself than what she’d imagined.

Ever the Hunted was beautiful on the outside and on the inside. Seriously, the cover is gorgeous and the book was gorgeously written. The story felt like a hybrid Fairy Tale – Fantasy novel and the words on the page were written lyrically helping create that feel. Taking place mostly in a forest the story had elements of Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White, however it was not a copy or re-imagining of any of those novels, but a unique story with only the feeling of a fairy tale element. As with other  fairy-tale and fantasy novels I’ve really enjoyed, this was more than just a love story, it was an action adventure novel with magical realism. Our heroine, Britta, comes to a realization about her feelings for Cohen, but also discovers the depths of power hidden within herself.

Having said all of these wonderful things, was the book perfect? It was perfect up to a point. I will not spoil the ending, but I will say that there was an unexpected twist that I still can’t decide if I liked or not. It felt like the author decided at the very end to turn this into a series when it could’ve very easily been a stand alone novel. That one twist took me out of the world this author created and made me go.. Huh. So because of that, I’m only giving this novel 4 hearts. Until that twist, I was enraptured by the story and world and would’ve given it a higher rating. ❤️❤️❤️❤️

Click this link to purchase! Ever the Hunted (A Clash of Kingdoms Novel)

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