A Wild Light (Hunter Kiss, Book 3)

Three and a half stars. I think Ms. Liu is improving with each book. One of her strengths is the beautiful prose and well-drawn characters, from the small role Mary and Rex play in this book, to the demons that love and guard Max. Like other readers, I found the confusion surrounding Max to be a barrier to a whole-hearted endorsement of earlier books. I understand that Max herself was also confused, but when the reader is plopped into a world that doesn't have many explanations, it creates an even greater sense of disorientation with the protagonist's identity crisis. In A Wild Light, much of the confusion becomes clear. By the end, we know more about her heritage as a Warden, how and why Wardens were created, and more about her show more mother's history. Although in the interest of keeping character mystery developing, we are given a teaser between Max's mom and her as-yet unknown and powerful father.

Near the beginning of the book, Max suffers a selective bit of amnesia that causes her to forget Grant. This unusual plot point works beautifully in giving us a chance to experience their relationship almost as if it was happening as a "first time" meeting. As previously mentioned, this also helps clear up more of Max's personal history and gives the reader a stronger sense of Max's character and decision-making. show less

Enjoying a brief interlude of semi-normality couldn't last - Maxine wakes up the morning after her birthday party to find her grandfather dead and her memory riddled with holes. To make matters worse, the veil is torn. As if a woman tattooed by demons from dawn to dusk really needed life to get more complicated.

Demons and deadlines - Maxine has a few too many of both. It anyone's going to survive she needs to lean on her friends and do things differently than any Kiss before her ever has.

I wish sometimes that we could give books 6 stars. There are some books that are better, deserve an outstanding - even more than I loved it. This is one of them.

This is the third full length novel in the Hunter Kiss series. It's intense. It's Lyrical. It's poetic horror and dark fantasy. It's great.

Maxine Kiss wakes up in a room, feeling like something is wrong. Slowly, things come to her, the smell in the room, the dread feeling, then she sees her grandfather. He's dead. Her demon protector "boys" are all there and behaving erractically - stressed out. They don't remember or won't tell her what happened. She doesn't remember what happened. Then someone walks in that she doens't recognize...

That's just the beginning (not a spoiler since show more the back of the book tells you this happened). This is an amazing, intense wonderfully written addition to the Hunter Kiss series. If you've read the other two books, you will recognize the returning characters. Byron, Jack, Killy, Father Lawrence, Mary, Grant.....and you will meet some compelling, dark characters.

There are answers to questions raised in the first two books. But...more is going to happen. I look forward to reading more of these novels.

It's possible to read this book and enjoy it if you havent' read the first two - but it's better to read them in order. Ms Liu gives you just enough information in each book that you can read it as a single book, yet I don't feel like I'm suffering from information overload, aka info-dumps.

The veil is weakening even more, more things are escaping the veil prison. Maxine is suffering some memory loss. The ring that we are introduced to in Iron Hunt grows - traveling up her wrist and becoming a little bit elaborate. New characters are introduced and it's not apparent if they're trustworthy - but there is a bit of help from them.

Grant learns some more of his past, as does Maxine. Maxine in fact, learns a lot in this novel.

Well worth the money to buy, a definite keeper. If you haven't read the first two books, Iron Hunt and Darkness Calls, I recommend them highly.

The Cover - I really like this cover. You can see the ring-come-gauntlett on Maxine's wrist. What I miss in this and the previous novel is something that was noticeable on the first novel. Maxine's Asian heritage. She had a beautiful nose and you could just see the Asian shape of her eyes. It was beautiful to see. I only wish that the skin reflected more accurately her heritage. Listen publishers/cover artists - it's okay to have a cover accurately reflect the heritage of the character described in the book. In this case, I would love to see more of her beautiful Asian features (like the first cover, Iron Hunt). I would love to see the beautifully shaped nose and eyes that were featured in Iron Hunt - if not more. C'mon guys - let's work on this! show less

Review courtesy of
AllThingsUrbanFantasy.blogspot.com

My experience to date with the Hunter Kiss series has been hit or miss. While I greatly enjoyed Hunter Kiss and The Iron Hunt, I fought to finish Darkness Comes over a period of several weeks. Perhaps exacerbated by how often I put it down and picked it up, I found the book confusing and I had a hard time keeping track of Maxine’s progress. In preparation for this review, I reread all the Hunter Kiss short stories and books. When I reread Darkness Comes over the course of a weekend, it became apparent to me that the confusion I had experienced on my previous reading was a critical part of the story. Maxine herself is being thrust into a confusing swirl of multi-dimensional events and show more time periods, and Marjorie Liu manages to convey those emotions without losing the reader entirely. I’m glad I revisited Darkness Comes, if only because it further heightened my enjoyment of the book that followed. A Wild Light is one of my favorite books this year, and the entire Hunter Kiss series has been bumped up to my top ten list.

As stated in the book description above, Chapter 2 of A Wild Light opens with Maxine standing over the corpse of her grandfather with no recollection of what took place. Furthermore, it is soon revealed that she has no memories of Grant, the love of her life. While amnesia gambits are among my least favorite literary devices (Why not just tell the reader you want a “do over” on your back-story?), in Liu’s hands this opening unfolds to become an integral part of two of my favorite facets of the book, the first being the long overdue courtship between Maxine and Grant.

Maxine’s relationship with Grant Cooperon takes place largely “off camera.” I saw their beginnings in the short story Hunter Kiss, but their attraction up until this point in the series has a largely “trust me, we’re made for each other” flavor. Their relationship has a heavy foundation in their respective magical natures, which makes it less easy for me to relate to as a reader. With amnesia, Maxine reacts to Grant in ways both believable and original. In the “believable” category, there is a certain echo of their first meeting, the distrust and attraction rolled into one. One of my favorite details is Maxine’s reaction to Grant’s eyes, two parts attraction and one part “Dude, stop staring at me.” We also get to enjoy aspects of their life together as Maxine experiences them for the first time, all over again. The way her sweet boys lean against Grant’s legs for greetings and comfort resonated strongly with me. Up until A Wild Light, my favorite love story in the series was between Maxine and her living-tattoo demon boys, Zee, Dek, Mal, Aaz, and Raw. A perfect mix of childlike enthusiasm and demonic mayhem, so many of my laugh or “awww” out loud moments in the series came from the boys and their relationship with “sweet Maxine.” The boys are Maxine’s family, her children and brothers and uncles all rolled into one. Their trust and affection is the strongest vote of confidence Grant could have hoped for. In Liu’s hands amnesia is not just a device that retreads old ground and brings Maxine and Grant back to where they started, she gives them a true clean slate. First impressions, a first kiss, and all the uncertainty, poignancy and zest of falling in love.

A Wild Light allows the Zee and the boys to shine, and highlights my second favorite aspect of the book: Marjorie Liu’s story building. Rather than feeling as if Maxine is being pulled forward on rails towards an inevitable destiny, Liu creates the sense that there is no one right answer. In fact, I think much of the difficulty I had in reading Darkness Comes was the result of Liu’s masterful portrayal of Maxine’s confusing world. With flavors of Jane Eyre meets Dr. Who, Maxine moves through both time and dimensions, and the reader is very much along for the ride. In my opinion, the majority of Urban Fantasy books can be read from a certain mental distance, even as you’re getting a first person perspective of the protagonist’s life. I usually feel like I’m putting together clues and following along (or ahead) of the main character’s logic. By this generalization, the Hunter Kiss series doesn’t read like a “typical” Urban Fantasy. Liu’s writing contains a poetry and mystery that reminds me of classical fantasy, or straight up classics. While this most recent Hunter Kiss novel does shed some light on the nuts and bolts of the forces in Maxine’s life, it more powerfully illuminates a realistic world with no one right answer. I can’t wait to read the next book in the series, but in the meantime, A Wild Light has given me a lot to mull over and discuss.

Sexual Content: An explicit sex scene.

An enthusiastic 4 bats… show less

After having one of the best birthdays she has had in a long time, waking up next to Jack Meddle’s corpse (her grandfather) made for the start of one of the worst days of Maxine Kiss’s life. Not only was her grandfather dead, well his body was anyways, but she was finding holes in her memory. The largest of the holes seemed to be centered around the man she apparently lived with. Knowing his special ability couldn’t help Maxine with her memory loss, Grant Cooperon held on to his faith that she would get her memories back soon. Being propelled by the need to find the person who had killed Jack, leads to realizing that the prison veil (the barrier holding the demons in another dimension) was tearing, leaving Max and Grant no choice show more but to figure out how to stop the demons from coming through, fighting them or dying themselves. With the help of Zee, Aaz, Raw, Dek and Mal (the boys), they hope to find the killer, restore her memories, repair the rip and save the world.

Book 3 ….. Sooo much, I am on overload with this one. Action and information flowed at such a rate that it was difficult to understand everything that was happening all at one time. All the labyrinth walks taking Max to the past gave her explanations and information she and Grant needed to understand what was happening, and what to do about it. I have to admit to occasionally being a bit confused with some of the why’s and how’s of it all, but I really enjoyed the relationships in this book. The character interactions with Max, Grant, Jack/Byron and even (to some extent) the demons was what carried me through to the end. I am not sure (especially after that ending) if Marjorie M. Liu is planning on another book in the Hunter Kiss series, but I would be interested to see if this series is of her typical writing style or if having a different subject matter changes things. show less

It's Maxine's birthday. Her and the boys are on their way to perform their special ritual, no one knows of, to celebrate her birthday and the death of her mother ~ as they are the same day. Then off to her party with her family, even her thousand million year old Grandfather is excited to celebrate a birthday with his grand daughter. Zee warns Maxine there are whispers of troubles to come. Then, Maxine wakes the next morning before dawn feeling every fiber of herself exhausted and weak. Curled up on the floor and blood around her with the dead body beside her... With loss of memory and an empty feeling in her heart, Maxine needs to solve the mystery. Along with the loss of memory of how this person died, she had one important person show more erased from her memory... Why? All this with the weight of the failing veil on her as well.

This is another great installment to the Maxine Hunter Kiss series. Marjorie is great at starting a new book with the new story, mystery, and dropping you right into the plot. She adds in through this story history to refresh your memory of the past happenings and relationships, but she doesn't reiterate completely to bore you or retell the previous. She brings you in quickly to a new story and dedicates the time to it.

You don't have to read the previous two books to read this one, but I would say you should. You do get brief refreshers on what you need to know had happened to keep you up with the happenings. But I found them great memory joggers to remember the happenings in more details.

I enjoy this series with the strong character Maxine is and the boys at her sides. Maxine is also joined by a few other strong characters. Maxine is a character with weaknesses, and flawes, but she makes it through a stronger person. You get to watch Maxine grow more in this book, more in her own way other than what is expected of the Kiss women. Many of the characters of past come back in this book; Grant, Jack, Byron, Crazy Mary, and a few others.

You learn more of the scar under Maxine's ear, and her ancestor she resembles. I learned much more of Maxine, the boys, and all the great magical characters. I felt like more pieces of the puzzle of Maxine, her family, and the veil started to fall into place, pieces I didn't realize I was missing before.

I am glad to hear that Marjorie will be doing more books in this world with Maxine and the boys and I will be looking forward to them. show less

Good enough - a bit of a slog in places. I liked learning more about "the boys" a lot.