“Inside she was in agony – and ecstasy.”
– Hunter's Rise by Shiloh Walker
After almost a decade and more than a dozen novels, insanely prolific romance author Shiloh Walker is concluding her Hunter saga (which includes Hunting the Hunter, Hunter's Salvation, Hunter's Need, Hunter's Fall, and the recently released Hunter's Rise) in appropriate style: with a wildly romantic – an erotic – offering.
Hunter's Rise revolves around the incendiary relationship between a more than century-old werewolf named Toronto who has no memories of his past before the Change and Sylvia James, a mercenary assassin who happens to be a vampire. Their paths cross when Sylvia and Tor are both tasked with tracking down a serial killer with a predilection for sexually abusing then murdering preteen boys. Sylvia wants nothing more than to track down and tear her quarry apart limb by limb while Toronto must keep the killer alive long enough for the families of the victims to see legal justice done. When they meet, well, the attraction is undeniable – and although their missions (and their very natures) seem to conflict, they soon find themselves an unlikely duo… but how long can it last before they turn on each other?
This novel (which was essentially a standalone) was a seamless blend of gritty mystery and supernatural romance. Walker excelled at creating three-dimensional and realistic characters. Tor, for example, was a far from lovable hero initially; Walker describes him early on as a “prickly, abrasive son of a bitch” and Sylvia came across as a cold-blooded albeit principled killer. But as the story unfolds, both characters’ appalling histories are revealed and Walker managers to make both endearing.
And while the sex scenes were incredibly steamy and very well written – there were some simply amazing sequences and lines, which I sadly cannot highlight here – it’s the heartrending sense of intimacy that Walker develops between the two that make this novel such a compelling read. For example, right in the middle of a wild sex scene, Walker brilliantly drops this paragraph into the equation:
“Her gaze swept up to meet his. And he felt some icy, lonely part of his heart soften at the look in her eyes. A look she hid almost immediately. Vulnerable… something soft, something gentle, something that made him think she was about as alone as he was.”
Ultimately, however, Hunter’s Rise was a bittersweet read for me – particularly after finding out that declining sales had more to do with ending the series than the author’s decision to stop telling stories in this wonderfully fertile paranormal fantasy realm (From the author’s website, posted on 3/13/12: “So I have sad news…”).
I’ve heard similar stories from paranormal fantasy authors recently and it got me thinking. Paranormal fantasy and romance have been phenomenally popular for the last few decades – I’ve described it as the Golden Age of Paranormal Fantasy – but I wonder if the bloom is finally fading for its hardcore fans?
Paranormal fantasy is definitely in a state of flux – blockbuster series like Kim Harrison’s Hollows and Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire saga will soon be ending and there have been decidedly less and less stellar debut novelists over the last few years.
And the haters certainly haven’t helped matters. Whenever any literary trend is popular (ie: commercially successful), there is an inevitable backlash – and the criticism aimed at paranormal romance and its readers has been nothing short of venomous. Just read this excerpt from the introduction of Caitlín R. Kiernan’s upcoming collection of weird erotica entitled Confessions of a Five-Chambered Heart:
“I delight at restraint and the pricking of my skin and the act of restraining, and a thousand monstrous lovers, a dozen lashes and countless other tortures, mutations and transfigurations (of mind and body), welcome alien violations, negations of gender, and we might go on like this quite a terribly long time. I think not many writers of the weird have ventured into these warpings of the world (and, no, not for a moment, do I count as comrades those recently teeming writers of ‘paranormal romance’ and ‘shifter fiction,’ for rarely do they accomplish anything more dangerous than dressing the safe and normative up in wolf’s clothing; these authors, and their readers, are merely tourists)...”
While I do agree with Kiernan that some paranormal romance and paranormal fantasy can be anything but innovative (the same can be said for any genre, I might add), there is definitely a place for these kind of novels in the genre fiction landscape. Sometimes I enjoy fantasy that is thematically weighty, deeply thought provoking, and enlightening – like Kiernan’s outstanding collection, for example – but other times, it’s nice to read something on the light side. And as the longtime moderator for BarnesandNoble.com’s Paranormal and Urban Fantasy forum, I know that thousands of readers share that same feeling. That’s what paranormal fantasy and paranormal romance are all about – literary escapism.
Although the paranormal romance and paranormal fantasy categories are going through some growing pains right now – and even though they have more than a few vocal detractors – I believe that both of these categories still have limitless potential and, sometime in the very near future, will find a way to reinvigorate themselves (perhaps spurred by a release or saga by a landscape-changing author, like Laurell K. Hamilton in the early ‘90s) and continue to attract millions of readers looking for entertaining escapism.
And speaking of sometime in the very near future, I believe that readers haven’t seen the last of Shiloh Walker’s Hunter saga... let's just call it a hunch.
Paul Goat Allen has been a full-time book reviewer specializing in genre fiction for the last two decades and has written thousands of reviews for companies like Publishers Weekly, The Chicago Tribune, Kirkus Reviews, and BarnesandNoble.com. He is a member of the National Book Critics Circle.
Keep up with all of my blogs – as well as all of Barnes & Noble’s exclusive reviews, authors interviews, videos, promotions, and more – by following @BNBuzz on Twitter!
Thank you so much... I hadn't planned on ending things with Tor & Sylvia, but if I had to end it abruptly, they were a good pair to go out with. I'd really wanted to have a chance to write his book and if nothing else, I did have that.
*ETA... and oops. I'm not signed in through my BN community account... this is Shiloh Walker... LOL. Thanks again... 
