A Wild Light by Marjorie M. Liu is the third novel in the Hunter Kiss series. In this book, we find the main character, Maxine Kiss, doing her life’s work: hunting zombies. These aren’t the typical zombies that everyone thinks of, eating brains and walking slowly, these are humans possessed by demons who feed on fear and suffering and are bent on ruining the human race. Maxine has her own demons as well, five of them tattooed across every inch of her skin, and many more burdening her heart. The external ones help her fight zombies and be nearly invincible; the internal ones just make her life harder. In A Wild Light, Maxine finds herself over her grandfather’s dead body with no recollection of what happened and no memory of the man that she loves. Maxine fears the darkness of her demons has taken over her and she will never be as she once was.Liu does an excellent job of painting an intricate and substantial world and very complex characters to go with it. Because I had not read the first two books in this series, The Iron Hunt and Darkness Calls, I did find myself a bit lost throughout, but managed to keep up with the basis of the story. I did feel like I was missing out on some details of the character’s lives, but it’s my own fault for not reading the first two first. I can say the story was compelling, interesting, and very well-written. Liu is clearly an established writer and really has a way with storytelling. This novel is definitely in the fantasy genre and can be paralleled to Charlaine Harris or Kelley Armstrong’s style and genre of writing. I would definitely recommend reading this, though I would say that reading the first two books ahead of time would be beneficial. I have already put them on hold at my library so I can read them and then reread A Wild Light.
Marjorie Liu is an attorney and a New York Times bestselling author of short stories, novellas, and two ongoing series: Dirk & Steele novels of paranormal romance and this series, the Hunter Kiss urban fantasy series. She also wrote NYX: No Way Home, X-23, and Black Widow for Marvel Comics and is co-writing the ongoing bestselling Dark Wolverine series. Liu divides her time between her home in Indiana and her native Beijing/Shanghai, China. For a complete listing of her work, visit her website at www.marjoriemliu.com.
A Wild Light retails for $7.99 in paperback and can be found on Amazon.com, Penguin.com, and at other major book retailers.
Thank you to the Penguin Group for sending us a complimentary review copy of this book to base this review upon.
