The Iron Hunt

Marjorie M. Liu

320 pages

June 24, 2008

ISBN-10: 0441016065

ISBN-13: 978-0441016068

Ace

Synopsis:

“Living tattoos: Demons of the flesh, turned into flesh. The only family demon hunter Maxine Kiss has ever known. The only way to live—and the very way she’ll die. For one day, her demons will abandon her for her daughter to assure their own survival—leaving Maxine helpless against her enemies”

“Silver smoke winds around my torso, peeling away from my ribs and back, stealing the dark mist covering my hands and lower extremities…tattoos dissolving into demon flesh, coalescing into small dark bodies. My boys. The only friends I have in this world. Demons.

I am a demon hunter. I am a demon. I am Hunter Kiss.

By day, her tattoos are her armor. By night, they unwind from her body to take on forms of their own. Demons of the flesh, turned into flesh. This is the only family demon hunter Maxine Kiss has ever known. The only way to live—and the very way she’ll die. For one day, her demons will abandon her for her daughter to assure their own survival—leaving Maxine helpless against her enemies

But such is the way of Earth’s last protector—the only one standing between humanity and the demons breaking out from behind the prison veils. It is a life lacking in love, reveling in death, until one moment—and one man—changes everything..”

Review:

“When I was eight, my mother lost me to zombies in a one-card draw.”

It is not every day that you read something like that as the first sentence of a book, so when I caught sight of that while standing in the grocery store I couldn’t resist making the purchase and checking out the entire story.

The Iron Hunt by Marjorie M Liu is a novel about a woman named Maxine Kiss, but Maxine is no ordinary woman. By day she her body is covered with tattoos, by night she has no tattoos and a group she fondly refers to as “the Boys” are at her side. Maxine is one of a kind, a Hunter. She hunts demons, as her mother and her mothers mother and the women of her line have done for centuries.

Unfortunately for Maxine everything gets pretty tangled when a man is found dead with her name written on a scrap of paper in her pocket, and she has to figure out what happened before the police get to nosey.

Marjorie M Liu weaves a wonderful tale, rich with detail and vibrancy that draws the reader in. Iron Hunt is the first book in a new series by Ms Liu but there was a novella about Maxine in a compilation a few years ago. Reading Iron Kiss there are times when you feel that you are missing a piece of the puzzle, that piece being that you did not read the novella, but on the whole the story is well written and stands alone without the absolute necessity of reading the novella first. There are mentions of things that happened in the past, I assume that occurred in the novella, but they are not so central to the story that you loose any of the experience if you have not read the novella first.

The book is well paced, the events flow well and the reader does not get bored while reading. It is a good beach book. One to read while relaxing but not so engrossing that you cannot put it down to go to bed at night. The characters are strong out of the gate and you see much development as the story progresses, and I am sure there will be even more as the series progresses.

All in all I enjoyed the book, and look forward to the next installation in the series. I give the book a solid B.

Moonlight shimmers across the open waters of life as we all seek our path. And sometimes we are luck enough to cross paths with those who we will share a deep portion of our lifes with. Dear friends are a blessing and we should guard each one as a precious gift from the Creator. Always watch out for those you love and help them along the path as well as you can. May your path be one of love and happiness and may you never slip into the depths of the waters and loose your trail.

Cassandre WhisperingCrow Hickinbotham