Review By Gabrielle
The Hunter’s Daughter is an addictive thriller debut from Nicola Solvinic.
Favourite Quote:
“I thought I could get through my whole life without killing someone. I thought I could be virtuous. Peaceful. That I could broker treaties among evil men and shattered hearts. And I thought wrong.”
Goodreads Synopsis:
Anna Koray escaped her father’s darkness long ago. When she was a girl, her childhood memories were sealed away from her conscious mind by a controversial hypnosis treatment. She’s now a decorated sheriff’s lieutenant serving a rural county, conducting an ordinary life far from her father’s shadow.
When Anna kills a man in the line of duty, her suppressed memories return. She dreams of her beloved father, his hands red with blood, surrounded by flower-decked corpses he had sacrificed to the god of the forest.
To Anna’s horror, a serial killer emerges who is copying her father – and who knows who she really is. Is her father still alive, or is this the work of another? Will the killer expose her, destroying everything she has built for herself? Does she want him to?
But as she haunts the forest, using her father’s tricks to the hunt the killer, will she find what she needs most…or lose herself in the gathering darkness?
This is a good one, folks. Right from the start, I found myself sucked into this thriller, and I couldn’t put it down. I stayed up way too late reading because I had to know what would happen next. There are plenty of twists and turns to keep you guessing right up until the end. I was surprised to learn this is a debut novel; it is very well done.
I loved the premise of the story. I’ve always loved the idea of a serial killer’s family. Did they know? How does it impact them? This story has an extra added layer because Anna had her memories essentially erased as a child via hypnosis. After she kills a man while investigating a domestic call, her memories start to return, and she turns to the original doctor who treated her for help. Together, they unlock more of her memories, and things start to get weird. Of course, this happens just as new murders mimic her father’s pattern, adding to the drama.
The story is told from Anna’s point of view, and I love her character. She is smart and complicated. A good cop, she felt driven to her career by a desire to help people. As her knowledge of her past comes to light, things get strange; lines start to blur, and nothing seems as black and white as before. The deeper she gets into the investigation of the new murders, the more she remembers from her past. There is a bit of a supernatural element to the story in a presence Anna feels. Is it all in her head? Or is it real?
Dark and atmospheric, you won’t be able to put The Hunter’s Daughter down.
Thank you, Berkeley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
