Hunted

Our Review

Hunted is the thrilling sequel to Defender by G. X. Todd. If you haven’t read Defender, then I highly recommend you read it before you start reading this.

Hunted is set in a world where a very high number of people hear voices in their head, voices that can either help or hinder you. For most people in this new reality hearing voices is a dangerous thing and something they need to keep hidden but for one girl this is doubly true.

This girl has a voice that doesn’t belong to her and that means a lot of people want to find her. One group is headed by a man named Posy, or ‘Not Posy’ depending on who you ask. Posy has questions he wants answers to, questions only she can provide answers to. Posy has a voice of his own, a voice that is tearing him apart and making him someone you don’t want to cross.

The group headed by Posy is not the only group looking for her.  In an Inn by the sea lives a group of people brought together by a young man named Albus. Albus has been mute since birth but he has a very special ability, he is able to ‘colours’ around people and know that they are special. Each person in his group has their own colour. Albus was lead to each of them by his sister Ruby coming to him a dream. Albus doesn’t know why he needs to help these people all he knows if that he is completing a task set by the beloved sister he hasn’t seen in years.

The girl has no idea that people are searching for her but when she finds out will any distance be enough to stop her from being hunted?

Initially, I struggled to get back into the series because it had been such a long time since I read Defender but by the time I was one chapter in I knew I was going to love Hunted as much as I loved Defender.

Hunted begins with a letter.

“Dear stranger,

                                Do I even call you that now? Stranger? We’ve come too far for that, I think. We know each other, a little bit, if only because we share the same world. We survive it by hiding – from ourselves, from each other, but I must tell you there is coming a time when hiding will no longer work.”

The letter argues that not all those who hear voices are bad, it isn’t as simple as that.

She ends the letter by calling the reader friend because in a world of strangers you can’t have too many friends.

The first chapter opens with a woman called Sunny and a man named Beck searching an old movie theatre for supplies when they stumble upon a kid hiding among one of the rows. The kid is very timid but a few times Sunny sees flashes of something else in his eyes. He is reluctant to come with her and Beck initially, but Beck is wielding a pitchfork and uses it to convince him to join their group, a group where most of them hear voices.

When they join the rest of the group there is a surprise confrontation in which the kid kills the leader of the group and ends up become leader of the group. His name is Posy and he tells the group they are now looking for two of his friends Lacey and Ruby-Red.

Sunny is one of my favourite characters in this book. She doesn’t hear voices unlike the rest of the group and she suspects she is only tolerated because she is with Beck. As the book progresses the actions of the group become increasingly violent and she feels Beck becoming sucked into it all despite her concerns. Sunny’s reactions to the violence frequently echo those the reader will be feeling.

The second chapter introduces us to Albus and his group at the Inn. Members of his group have just returned from a trip to find one of the people his sister has guided him to. This time the person is a young baby abandoned in a field, his mother having fled and died a short distance away. The group vote on a name for the baby and decide to call him Jaspar.

Returning to Posy and his group we learn that Posy knows The Flitting Man is looking for Ruby as well and he thinks that is a good thing. Something that readers who remember the mentions of him in Defender will have felt uneasy about.

We learn Posy was there in Vicksburg when Lacey rescued her friend from Doc and the others and that it was in the aftermath of this that he gained his voice.

What is the implication of previously voiceless people being able to gain a voice? Of voices being able to jump from person to another?

Why do people keep dreaming of Red Skies? What does it mean?

Hunted is full of suspense and there is definitely a sense of key characters getting into position for a final battle.

Another excellent book. I can’t wait to read the next one.

 

Our Final Rating...

Thu, 15th February 2018