I really loved Susan Dennard’s The Luminaries for it’s rich attention to detail and emotive language. I thought that the vibes were all there for an unsettling YA Dark Naturalism, mythical folklore-laced series that would leave the reader eager for more. I went into her newest novel, The Hunting Moon, expecting the same descriptive lushness and strange separation to the rest of the town and I only got half of that.

The Hunting Moon is by no means a badly written book. It’s definitely YA in its pacing, characterisation and plotting but it is still immensely entertaining and immersive. The landscape is shrouded in more shadows and as the reality sets in for Winnie the tension rises and we see a girl who yet again is forced to live in a town that doesn’t understand what’s happening. We have tethers pulling in more personal directions for Winnie and her ex-triangle of friends. We have a ticking time bomb that gets brought up every day, a time bomb we know the answer to but can only hope doesn’t blow up in everyone’s faces. It’s a wonderful book, but I can’t help but feel that it’s losing its unique perspective in the grander scheme of YA fantasy writing.

There is a certain area of YA fantasy that houses the kinds of works The Luminaries sits alongside which includes such titles as House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig, One Dark Window by Rachel Gillig and Juniper and Thorn by Ava Reid. These dark fairytale, dark naturalism witchy fantasy books where the ominous feeling resides between the lines and the flavour of the worlds leaks into the pages, the words tasting like dirt and sweat on your tongue. I love this area of YA Fantasy and I find some of my favourite titles in this rich, shadowy corner of literature. I’m sad to say it, but I think The Hunting Moon has taken a few steps away from this playing ground and is trying to fit in with more mainstream titles and tropes without the YA Fantasy sphere. There’s a loss in setting description, a loss in that emotive language that makes you feel like you’re being watched, and it feels less like a thriller-esque YA dark fantasy and more like a generic high-school YA supernatural fantasy.

I do want to point out the things from The Hunting Moon that I really appreciated though because otherwise this will sound like a completly negative review and I actually enjoyed reading this. Winnie’s switch from outsider to all-new celebrity within the town is something that leads itself nicely to the themes of eerie ignorance and lack of understanding of what’s actually going on from those around her. Instead of being ostracized, her opinions are being overlooked in favour of “celebrating” her family’s return. The only people that genuinely care for Winnie are her family (though they are sceptical of her experience), new friends (though they are still naive and make ignorant actions make towards her) and her old friends who are dealing with their own things. The folklore creatures beyond the boundaries of town are so interesting and they make for some great action scenes as well as subjects of learning. The secrecy she’s forced to keep and then let Jay in on makes for some high-stakes and high-tension and the slow-burn romance between these two finally gets good.

All I ask, I guess, is that the third book returns to that essential place within the dark naturalism/dark fairytale side of YA Fantasy so that the feel of the whole series rests within this sub-genre of YA Fantasy instead of being lost in the in-between with no real sense of place and standing. Susan Dennard is a magnificent writer and knows how to write a book, I just hope she sticks to her guns and keeps this series where its roots are.