Burn the Dark

October 7, 2019
Immaculate worldbuilding drives this atmospheric series opener from Hunt (Law of the Wolf). Youtuber Robin Kotter amasses millions of followers for her action-packed witch-hunting videos, but her audience has no idea that the violence in her videos is real; Robin’s on a quest to avenge her mother’s murder at the hands of supernatural forces. One of her earliest kills leaves Robin with an ominous threat: “The Red Lord will find you.” Now she sometimes spots a crimson figure lurking at the edge of her vision, but is unsure if the vision is real or magic intended to sow self-doubt. Joined by a cast of diverse, thoughtfully written characters, Robin returns to her hometown of Blackfield, Ga., to kill the coven responsible for her mother’s death, but the Red Lord intervenes, and Robin discovers that the circumstances surrounding the crime are far more complex than she knew. With a detailed setting and an ear for dialogue, Hunt captures a distinct feeling of Southern Americana. The cliff-hanger ending is sure to leave readers eager for the next installment.

November 15, 2019
An ambitious YouTube celeb gives her viewers more than they bargained for in this first installment of the Malus Domestica trilogy. Robin Martine trained to kill witches with Hammer, the best in the business, and has returned to her childhood home in Alabama to begin her slayfest in earnest. Her aim is to eliminate the coven that made her mother into a dryad when she was a child, and she encounters a new and terrifying foe known as the Red Lord. Robin gets assists from friends old and new, from childhood friend Joel to war vet Kenway. Hunt supplies each character with snappy dialogue and situates the action in a Southern Gothic setting evocative of other supernatural series, such as Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse books. Robin is a distinctly modern new heroine, combining classic tropes with twenty-first-century methods. She might be the only hunter in literature to keep her passive income stream in mind while shooting B-roll on the way to confront witches, which is likely to delight readers looking for a new twist in their horror picks.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)