Emma Seckel

Wild Hunt

Christine Bruce

On an old island in northern Scotland, October is a cursed month. In October the sluagh visit- a massive murder of crows that are known to carry people away and have become more and more violent in the years since the war. Leigh Welles has returned to the island for the first time in years when her father is found dead amid the rocks. She finds an island vastly changed, but also still stuck in the war- propaganda posters and blackout windows still present despite the decade since Victory over Europe. 

When a young boy Leigh viewed as her little brother goes missing after antagonizing the sluagh, she and RAF veteran Iain MacTavish are the only ones who don't give up hope of finding him alive. In the process, Leigh learns how the island has coped with the loss of so many of their boys to the war, an entire generation minus Iain really. Younger brothers left in shadows, parents left adrift with the memory of their sons as their only anchor to reality. The entire town is stuck in a state of limbo while the young children grow up desperate for a change but also with an edge that only comes from loss. 

That edge is what drives the teen to do something drastic, and what eventually leads to his disappearance. That same edge led Leigh to Leigh the island to find a grand life in Edinburgh only to feel even more left behind by her brother and a lack of success. Leigh finally finds a stability on her home island, and is determined to end the problems they face in any way she can. 

The Wild Hunt is a a beautiful, atmospheric horror about loss, grief, and the power of moving on. Easily one of my favorite books of the year so far, I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. A perfect Autumn read that I plan to read again during October.

Wild Hunt

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