Lotssss of yearning all around which I always love. The pace was too slow for me and then the fighting and ending all happened so quickly. The writing was very pretty. The main group of characters we got POVs from were great but the side characters were slightly boring. I had a good time, but I’m not wow’d!

Oh I know I am well over a year late on this one. I tried reading it last February before release and was not feeling it. A year and half later it was finally time to get it off my shelf and I understand why I have been avoiding it. There was nothing wrong with it, but there was nothing there to really keep my interest. Maybe if it was shorter? Maybe if it wasn't so prose you kind of lose a lot of the plot? Maybe if he characters just talked to each other? I loved sistersong so I am sad this one didn't work for me.

This is a mythological retelling with a feminist twist that reimagines the legend of the Wild Hunt. The story centers on Herla, a warrior who makes a desperate pact with the king of the Otherworld to save her lover and people from the Romans. This curses her to lead the Wild Hunt for centuries, reaping souls across Britain.

The writing is rich and descriptive, blending historical detail with elements of fantasy, creating this world where magic and reality seamlessly coexist. The pacing is perfect, allowing for the right mix of context, plot advancement, and deep character development.

Honestly a masterclass in reimagined folklore on par with Katherine Arden’s The Bird and the Nightingale series and the Madeleine Miller catalog. Anyone with a penchant for historical fantasy needs to pick this up.

This was a pretty great read. I have always like the lore of the hunt and Celtic lore.

The characters were awesome and I definitely recommend checking them out. They are all so strong and persevering. A lot of understated things that helped the story along.
The lore and politics are well told, This one was gripping and a good read until the end.

I would for sure tell someone check this one out.

Beginning in 60AD, then moving quickly to about 600AD, author Lucy Holland melds political intrigue amongst real historical figures, war, and myth together in this novel.

Herla, a fierce warrior and lover of Boudicca, begs the king of the Otherworld, Gwyn ap Nudd for help so she can fight the Romans at Boudicca's side. Gwyn tricks Herla, and keeping her in the Otherworld for three hundred years, and saddling her with a deadly duty: lead the Wild Hunt. For three hundred years, Herla and her all -female fighters take souls.

On one battlefield, she sees an incredibly fierce woman, a Saxon queen named Æthelburg of Wessex. Æthelburg sees Herla, and is entranced. Though Æthelburg is not successful during the battle, she does capture Geraint of Dumnoni, and his son. Though Æthel tries to keep the man alive, he's murdered and Æthel manages to narrowly avoid Prince Cadwy's death.

Herla quietly follows Æthel to Wessex and gets to know the woman, Æthel finds herself captivated and intrigued by Herla, while Ine hides all that is going on with him: the reasons behind his lack of interest in sex, and a growing magical power within him.

Æthel though a highly successful warrior, is constantly undermined within her husband King Ine's Court, and particularly by his brother, the jealous Ingild. Though the two have been married for years, Ine's and Æthel's marriage is not in good shape, as the Court is disgusted that Æthel has not produced an heir, and Ine has not consistently backed her during discussions and arguments during political discussions with the Court.

When it slowly is revealed that something malign, and from the Otherworld, is killing people both in Wessex and in Dumnoni, the human factions must find a way to set aside their quarrels, while Æthel must convince Herla to oppose Gwyn, if the humans are to succeed, and Herla to find a way out for her and her warriors from their unhappy immortality.

I remember learning a little about the politics of early Britain many years ago, so I was interested in the machinations between the Saxons and Britons, as well as the intrigue in Ine's Court.

Æthel proves to be incredibly tough and always ready to help and protect Wessex, garnering her much loyalty from the farmers and others of the land, despite Ine's Court's derision. Ine was interesting, but I confess to being incredibly frustrated with this character, who refused to see the dangers growing amongst those supposedly loyal to him, the bigoted influence of both the Church and other Saxons against the Britons, and impact of his actions and inaction on Æthel.

I liked the way the Wild Hunt was reconceived as an all-female band of fierce and fell warriors, and I also enjoyed the way Holland conceived of the Wessex Kingdom and the pressures within it.

I enjoyed the first half of this book a lot, but the longer it went on the less my interest was held. I wavered between Herla and Æthel as my favourite characters, but never really warmed to Ine, despite his opening up to Æthel far into the book.

Thank you to Netgalley and to Redhook Books for this ARC in exchange for my review.

I can appreciate this book for the fact that the author did her research, but in doing so, the book was an incredibly dense read. It's definitely not something to read to get out of a slump. I appreciate that this kept closer to the mythos and the grittyness, but there was a scene that felt unnecessary and uncomfortable because it wasn't brought back of again (bathing scene). Overall, this would be something good for someone that wants to read diverse characters with sexualities, but in the mood for a really dense world building.

I simply adore historical fiction. And this one was a story I hadn't heard much of before. After reading it, I had to do some research on the actual history and time period. Captivated me like everything from this time and place. Beautifully written.

I enjoyed a mythological retelling that was not Greek or Roman, which tends to saturate this market. I also really appreciated the representation that was intentionally crafted into this story. I don't really know a lot about Herla and her mythology, so this was a very fresh tale to me. I would recommend!

This book just wasn’t for me. It was a dnf for me. Not because the book wasn’t good, I just think it wasn’t my tastes and it was an effort to stay engaged.

A key strength of this book, is the depth of historical detail, including the small details, like what kind of armor would be worn in battles, as well as the period's sociopolitical and cultural goingson. Moreover, I love how she balances the the meatiness of her stories with such beautiful, lush, poetic language.

I was quite pleased with how character-focused this book was. The plot itself takes a while to build momentum, because of this I believe the slow start will be unappealing to some readers. Holland balances three POV characters - Herla, Æthelburg, and Ine - really well. The characters struggle with their respective roles and identities and, Holland very adeptly shows how those struggles impact their relationships with each other. I think she achieves this most successfully with Æthel and Ine, and I loved watching their relationship develop, even as I ached for and with each of them. I know that some readers will be dissatisfied by how much "miscommunication" there is in this story, but I felt that Holland wielded the flaws of human nature nicely. Importantly, I am so, so pleased that Holland did not allow the secrets and hurts between Æthel and Ine, particularly, to direct the overarching plot.

This story had great potential but ultimately left me wanting more. The writing was beautiful but I never truly connected with the characters the way I would like to.

Song of the Huntress has a wonderfully exciting premise, set in archaic England before the Saxons and Britons were united, I found the setting equally as intriguing. However there is something to be said about pacing, which this book drowns in. It was terribly slow and took me several weeks to finish. I found myself forgetting things because it was taking me so long to complete. Things moved painfully slow to the point it felt the plot was completely lost and often very mundane actions were dwelt upon for too long which exacerbated the issue.
The writing was beautiful, but often too overridden with prose and metaphor which necessitated me having to go back and read lines again in order to fully grasp their meaning. The story got lost in the writing sometimes and although I think it was meant to pull you deeper into the book, it often took me out of it because I was confused by the meaning.
Overall it wasn’t my favorite, but I am not unhappy to have read it and I hope to read something else from the author in the future (with hopefully a quicker pace).

The cover gave me the highest of hopes. I loved all the tiny details and virtually significant iconography. The story itself did not disappoint! I was immersed from cover to cover. I felt strongly about every character and hung on to every word!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was an epic and wide sweeping fantasy and I really enjoyed the story and all of the history that was incorporated. I loved the fantasy parts of this book and the romance was so well done and slowly built out in a great way. The strong women in this book were so wonderful and I loved how the book focused on their strength. We need more strong women who are also show their vulnerability.

It took me a long time and several attempts to make it through this. A lot of the problems could have been solved by people talking to each other. The magic was cool but that was about all I liked.

Lucy Holland’s historical fantasy Song of the Huntress has a complex setup that takes extended verbiage to explain, just like in the novel itself. When she’s offered enough power to vanquish Queen Boudica’s Roman enemies in the 1st century CE, her lover, Herla, foolishly grabs it. Problem is, Herla’s benefactor was Gwyn ap Nudd, lord of the Otherworld, who condemns her to lead the Wild Hunt through the ages, killing with uncontrollable bloodlust whenever the moon is old.

Centuries pass. When Herla reappears in the time of King Ine and Queen Æthelburg of Wessex, she somehow finds the ability to resist her murderous urges – temporarily – and she and Æthelburg, warrior women both, feel a slow-burning mutual attraction. Besides ongoing tensions with other Saxon kingdoms and native Britons, Æthelburg is angered that only Ine takes her abilities seriously, even as he remains romantically distant.

The novel’s premise is a super-creative mashup of eras, and the storyline of dark magic re-emerging in 8th-century England makes an entertaining blend of history and the supernatural. But I found the pace very slow at times, and for a feminist novel, it's curious that Ine’s storyline held my attention the most. Ine loves his wife but isn’t attracted to her, he daringly prefers alliances to fighting, and his coming to terms with a vein of reawakened power is truly compelling.

Song of the Huntress by Lucy is an intriguing and captivating read. Set in 60AD Britain, it is a beautifully crafted historical fantasy that retells the myth of the Wild Hunt. What I particularly admire about the author’s approach is the exploration of queerness in history—filling in the gaps where such identities might have existed, which adds a refreshing depth to the narrative.

The story weaves together political intrigue, dangerous conspiracies, powerful enemies, and ancient magic. While it took me a little while to fully immerse myself in the plot, once the story picked up, I was completely hooked. The twists and turns kept me on the edge of my seat, never quite knowing what to expect next. The unpredictable nature of the story made it all the more compelling, and I found myself deeply invested in the characters and their fates.

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publishing Company for this Advanced Readers Copy of Song of the Huntress by Lucy Holland!

I enjoyed this novel set in Britain during the Roman Empire with a kick ass heroine that kept me turning pages. The story was new as well as was the setting. As we don't tend to get historical fiction set at this time period. Especially with a strong female heroine.

Gorgeous. I will never get over how well this author acknowledges the vibrance and variety of human relationships and sexuality throughout history without writing about them in a way that sounds jarringly anachronistic or like an after school special. I really admired this same skill in Sistersong and I really admired it here. I was in AGONY over the relationships in this story in the best way.