Witch Hunter

Title: Witch Hunter

Series: The Witch Hunter - book 1

Author: Virginia Boecker

Raing: 4 stars

Genre: Paranormal, Historical Fantasy

Number of Pages: 409

Publication Date: 2015

Publisher: Orchard Books

Summary: Elizabeth Grey may look harmless, but don't let that fool you. She can take out five necromancers with a single sword and slay a wizard at fifty paces.

But when she's found carrying witch's herbs, she is thrown into jail with no chance of escape. Only magic, which she's fought against all her life, can save her...

Now, with Elizabeth's chances of survival in the very hands of those she has been trained to fight, she faces an impossible choice.

This book has perhaps the most interesting premise I have come across in a long time. As soon as I picked this book up and read the back, I had to have it! The idea of reading a book where the main character is the witch hunter and the not the witch isn't that popular, not when the witches are in fact the good guys. Books where the main character is forced to reevaluate everything they have ever been taught are perhaps the books that I find the most appealing.

While the premise of this book was fantastic and the plot itself was interesting, I found that the writing itself let this book down. I didn't find Virginia Boecker to be have a particularly appealing writing style. She wrote in an almost simplistic or basic way. There were no lines that stood out, no creative metaphors and no impressive descriptions of scenes, characters or environments. However, Witch Hunter is her debut novel so it isn't surprising that there is room for improvement. Not many people can write a master piece on their first try.

My one complaint about the story line itself is in the way that Elizabeth Grey is described. Elizabeth is described as being a great witch hunter, the very best, an unstoppable force. Yet I found that we never quite got to see this in the book, Elizabeth seemed to be constantly run down, overwhelmed and only seemed to succeed when she had others to rely on or through the very fact that the author wrote the plot with her winning. However, because I did find the authors writing to be a little weak at times I feel that this would have come across better if she was a stronger writer.

I really look forward to seeing where this series goes next and how Virginia Boecker's writing improves.