Witch of the Week – Hunter of the YA urban fantasy, Kingdom of War
Welcome to my WOTW, Witch of the Week, part 4. We first meet Hunter in Kingdom of Embers, the first of the Kingdom Journals, young adult urban fantasy series. In Kingdom of Embers, Alena’s mother, Anne, chooses Hunter as her target for a search we, or Alena, don’t know the point of. When she sees him Alena pretends not to recognize him or detect the ping of magic she senses emanating from him. In the days to follow she returns to the library to find Hunter. They realize they’d known each other as imaginary friends as preschoolers and set out on a quest to discover how and why.
Hunter is a regular guys, fairly smart, with lots of friends, and is interested in studying engineering in college. He plays guard on his basketball team. He’s an only child who lives with his mother in a small apartment in Los Angeles. He spends time with his father infrequently as well as his half-brother. His father and brother travel often but it doesn’t bother Hunter because he doesn’t fully trust them. His father seems odd and his brother is cruel and malicious. Hunter is dedicated to his mother and wants to protect her from his father.
As the story progresses, Alena admits to Hunter that she is a witch and believes he is as well. Hunter struggles to believe but is convinced when Alena helps him learn to perform magic. Then, a witch seer, named Chalondra, reads Hunter and he realizes his father is the leader of all the witch lines. Further, his brother is a vampire-witch hybrid. In Kingdom of Embers we learn little about what Chalondra tells Hunter. But the prequel to the series, Kingdom of the Damned, gives the history and legacy of Hunter’s family and their coven. They descend from the archangel Michael and serve as leaders of the witches.
A second part to Alena and Hunter’s findings is a curse and prophecy for breaking the curse. The curse placed on the witch people damns their souls to purgatory for eternity and restricts them from having permanent homes. They must never own a dwelling and move at least over two years. This limits their numbers and powers as witches. The prequels to the series reveals the originator of the curse and reason behind it. All these details will get us off topic today, but believe me, it’s cool! Alena and Hunter learn they are two of a trinity of witches destined to break the curse. But first they must find the third of the trinity and learn how to end the curse.
Researching the curse, they guess that the Lance of Longinus is the key to releasing the curse on witchkind. Even more shocking is the revelation that Hunter’s brother, Theron, knows where the lance is. Unknowingly, Theron boasts to Hunter about being bestowed the age old relic by their father. The finale in Kingdom of Embers finds Alena and Hunter battling Theron and Thanatos for possession of the sword. I won’t give away any other spoilers.
Following Kingdom of Embers, Kingdom of Darkness, and Kingdom of Honor, relay how Alena and Hunter find the third witch of the trinity, Camille, and come to be aided by Jude, Tyler, and D.J. The finale to the series, Kingdom of War, Hunter’s Story, tells of Hunter’s transformation to a full witch, how they form a coven, and seek to break the curse.
Hunter must battle his nature as a leader and the desire to command those around him, to work as a team with Alena, Camille, Jude, Tyler, and D.J. I don’t want to say too much more about the finale to the series so as not to ruin the fun. You can read Kingdom of War in ebook format or listen on audiobook. And bonus, the Kingdom Journals characters are living on in my new series, Realm Chronicles that begins with To be a Fae Queen.
Until next week, happy reading and happy listening! Tricia