The Hunting by Sam Hawksmoor

The Hunting by Sam Hawksmoor
Buy The Hunting by Sam Hawksmoor at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Teens
Reviewer: Robert James
Summary: Sadly the sequel to one of my favourite books of the past 12 months has an ending which leaves a lot to be desired. I'm assuming there's a follow-up in the works - I'd wait for that one and read them both together.
Buy? Maybe	Borrow? Maybe
Pages: 496	Date: August 2012
Publisher: Hodder Children's Books
External links: Author's website
ISBN: 978-0340997093
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Warning – spoilers for The Repossession by Sam Hawksmoor below.

Genie, Rian and Renee escaped from the Fortress in the Repossession, but their plan to spread the word about the evil people running it went wrong. Now they're on the run, with a reward on their heads, roadblocks in their way, and a whole host of fellow victims to worry about. Can they escape – or will they become the hunters in an attempt to take control of their lives back?

I've been desperate to read this ever since racing through Hawksmoor's debut The Repossession on New Year's Eve. As those of you who read my review of that book may remember, Genie and Rian were a central couple who completely captured my heart and I loved the setting of Spurlake. I couldn't wait to see what happened next – but to be honest, I feel slightly disappointed.

There's no question that Hawskmoor is a talented author who's created a great premise here in the paranormal-tinged sci-fi he's writing. The first part of the book lives up to expectations with really good action scenes and the continual development of the relationship between Genie and Rian. As in book one, Hawksmoor also pulls of the difficult trick of explaining just enough about the complicated science involved in teleportation to draw the reader in without ever letting it bog the story down. Unfortunately, however, the action peters out as we get to an ending which seems to leave an absolutely incredible amount of questions unanswered – I can't find any information about another book but there surely has to be in order to get any sort of satisfying conclusion. Even if there is a follow-up planned, I'd have appreciated an ending which resolved some of the issues. In addition, I really disliked the way the relationship between Genie and Rian changed towards the end of the book.

It may well be that if there's a third book which answers some of the questions I'm currently lost on then this one will look better in retrospect – but as things stand, I'm not able to recommend this anywhere near as strongly as I could the first book in the series.

I still absolutely love book one. For more teen sci-fi then Gone by Michael Grant is the start of one of the very best ongoing series out there.

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