TBR Review Challenge: Heart of the Hunter

The book begins with a story from long ago of a mystical world, Anavrin, that is separated from ours. A woman from Anavrin, trying to help an injured man, takes a sacred chalice through the portal of the two worlds, which she is actually forbidden to do. The man drinks from the chalice and is completely healed and taken into the mystical kingdom. Now it is said that if the chalice leaves the kingdom that a terrible ill will befall Anavrin and that a dangerous dragon will be unleashed in the kingdom. The man ends up stealing the chalice and once it is in our world it more or less explodes and becomes four different chalices that are scattered over the land.

This leads into the story…Ariana’s brother, Kenrick, who was a Knight Templar has, unbeknownst to anyone, been doing research on where these four chalices are in order to find them and keep them out of the hands of evil Silas de Mortaine. Kenrick is kidnapped by de Mortaine and Ariana is contacted to bring the research in exchange for Kenrick’s life.

In her quest to get to Kenrick, Ariana meets and is helped by Braedon. Braedon is hiding from something that happened to him previously. Between Braedon trying to keep Ariana safe, save the brother and eventually try to find one of the chalices they fall in love.

What I liked:

*Ariana’s and Braedon’s relationship. Though it started off on the wrong foot I enjoyed the way they interacted with each other. Braedon was rough and tough and had had a lot of pain in his life but he was very gentle with Ariana which I loved. He cared for her deeply, as she did him, and eventually wasn’t afraid to tell her exactly why and how.
*Also, Braedon had these “hunting” senses that were amazing. I enjoyed the parts of the story when he was using them, it gave the story a whole different feel at those times.

What I didn’t like:
There were several things that I has issue with *First was the fact that the legend from Anavrin stated the horrible ill and the dragon that would be unleashed if the sacred chalice left the kingdom. Neither the ill nor anything about the dragon was mentioned during the rest of the book. It was mentioned late in the book about Anavrin suffering, but it never stated from what….Ill? Dragon Attack? What?
*Next, during the story there were shape-shifters shifting at various times during the story. As freaky as this was to the characters it was kind of taken with a grain of salt and not explained that these were traitors from Anavrin till much, much later in the story. This story takes place in the year 1275 and the fact that the characters weren’t making more of the shifting didn’t sit well with me.
*Finally the epilogue. Ariana and Braedon were being hunted through most of the story. During the epilogue it was a little too happily ever after for me. Don’t get me wrong – that’s how it should have been and I loved how it was written…I’m just hopeless romantic. But how could they now live without fear? Why weren’t they still being hunted? Not to give too much away but they found one of the chalices…what did they do with it? Did they take it back to Anavrin? Just too many unanswered questions.

Overall I think it was a good book. It wasn’t great but it did hold my interest.

Was the author new to you and would you read something by this author again?
Tina St. John was new to me. I’m not sure if I’m interested enough to read the next 2 books in the series. I’m still deciding.

Are you keeping it or passing it on?
I think I might pass it on.

Did you enjoy the book? Yes

Would you recommend this book to others? Sure

SCORE: 3 out of 5

Anything else?
FYI – Tina St. John is also known as Lara Adrian whose Midnight Breed series I absolutely love!