‘You are mad, brother, the plains or the desert will claim us all, coinless, meaningless, bleached bones in sand. And what will we have achieved then? What great mark will you have left on this world?’

What happens when your past comes back to bite you in the ass?

Ree is a woman who comes from a violent, blood-stained past. Having left that life behind, she has been wandering for years searching for a safe place to settle with her young niece, Javani. She thinks she’s found it upon a small farm on the edge of The Mining Country in Kazeraz. The days are long and gruelling, filled with hard labour and little reward, but it is relatively peaceful. That is until two sets of professional killers begin a hunt to find an older woman and a young girl believed to have ties to the Shenak throne. What follows from then is a chaotic chase across the desert through mountains and mines, explosions and battles, and a desperate race to survive.

The Hunters is packed to the brim with madness and mayhem, humour and anarchy, mysticism and alchemy, but most of all it holds characters you will absolutely love, and those you will love to hate.

Though the Plains and the Mining Country is a harsh, barren place filled with corruption, violence and much loss, I would say that The Hunters falls less into the grimdark genre as Wragg’s previous Articles of Faith duology had and sits firmly as a fantasy Western-adventure. Yes, the world is ruthless, and as I would expect from Wragg, the characters are morally grey and are not all that heroic, or even successful, but hey these are characters who continuously try to be better. Javani is a typical teenager, prone to surliness, she’s wilful and demanding but beneath that there is a tender innocence, an endearing kindness and a heartbreaking need to feel loved. Ree, on the other hand, is emotionally hardened, practical and fierce, but in a low-key kind of way so as to not draw attention to herself. Her relationship with her niece Javani is strained, neither seeming affectionate or close to one another, but watching them both grow pulled on my little heartstrings. My next two favourite characters were Anashe and Aki, our tempestuous brother and sister duo—they immediately stole the show for me! Aki thinks he’s a poet, a wordsmith, a blessing from the Goddess and Anashe is immensely irritated by his antics. The dynamics between these two made me laugh out loud. They argue, snipe and irritate each other, but still their love for one another permeates. You can see it in the way Anashe is fiercely protective of Aki, and more than anything she wants to bring him a semblance of peace. After the death of their father and later their mother, both siblings search for answers, for closure. Damn you Wragg, you once again provided plenty of characters who I immediately became attached to and their journey of looking for a place to belong, to find people to belong with, made me sob (a lot) by the end.

‘The work I did, and who I was, or am, are two separate things. I did a lot of jobs, some violent with words, some violent with acts. I am me, and always was.’

This is a book which does hit you emotionally many times, but of course, Wragg also injects much superb humour. Aki was perhaps the funniest of them all, but the more shady characters provided much comedy too. The bandit Movos Guvuli and the giant Horvaun warrior, The White Spear, made me laugh out loud with their antics and their ambiguous motives. Some of my favourite scenes included a battle with camel riders including a headless camel, and a mad chase across the desert ending in an exploding bridge!

‘Sister, my words! How am I to compose my works without vocabulary, without lexicon? I am bereft, I am shorn and impoverished, my very-‘

‘Sounds like you have plenty of words,’

Javani volunteered.

‘By the Goddess, you are right! I am restored! The light shines upon me again. Once more shall the desert echo to the sounds of

The muscles of Ree’s jaw were standing proud, casting deep shadows.

Are we being fucking followed?’

The Hunters delivers much glorious pandemonium, I tell you! Yet Wragg also balances this fast paced action with many poignant reflections during the quieter moments, the moments by campfire, in the dawn or dusk where all journeys take a lull. Wragg touches upon themes of corruption and morality, which he also explored in the Articles of Faith duology. We are shown how corrupt the Guildmasters are, the ones who are supposed to uphold the law and be just are the ones stealing from the hard working labourers, the miners who risk their lives to make the most money, only to then have the Guild take it away. It’s easy to see why people like Guvuli would turn to banditry and lawlessness. However, what I most loved was the exploration of motherhood, family bonds and the importance of stories. Here is where the characters revealed much more about themselves, where we really dig beneath their skin. The notion that labels such as ‘mother’ come with daunting expectations, one’s that Ree runs from but Javani desperately needs, really hit me. Though it is not the labels which truly matter, it matters more on your deeds and what you mean to one another. Yet to counter this, acknowledging who you are and facing your past has its own freedom, as our characters discover, you can’t run from yourself or your responsibilities forever.

This leads into the importance of stories and of their purposes. Although the fantasy element is rather low-key, with alchemy used in weaponry, there are also the mystical stories Aki tells of a reincarnated minions of the Goddess of creation and of her adversary, Usdohr and his demons hiding in human vessels. Wragg leaves it to his readers to decide if those stories hold truth, if some of our characters are these reincarnated or demonic figures, or whether they were just used to distract Javani from their many dire situations. I loved the ambiguity of that. Stories also hold a significant link to the past, and if you’ve read The Black Hawks, you’ll spot some nice familiar figures within Ree’s stories, which I found fun. Yet they also help us find a connection with the people we have loved and lost, as seen through Aki desperately seeking stories of his mother. I’m tearing up just thinking about it. Though most of all, I loved how these characters shape their own story.

The Hunters was everything I expected and so much more—achingly heartfelt, addictively fast-paced and hilariously chaotic. This is a story of motherhood, of finding your path, and of finding freedom. Wragg delivers an absolutely explosive, quite literally, start to the Tales of the Plains trilogy. 

‘History has no end, little one, but the stories we tell are wrapped within it, and some stories are told over and over and over, to begin again as soon as they are ended.’

ARC provided by the author and by Harper Voyager in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for the copy! All quotes used are taken from an early ARC and are subject to change upon publication.

The Hunters is out 20th July 2023 but you can pre-order your copy HERE