Song of the Huntress by Lucy Holland

I would like to thank Tor UK for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher – Tor

Published – Out now

Price – £16.99 hardback £8.99 Kindle ebook

Britain, 60 AD. Hoping to save her lover and her land from the Romans, Herla makes a desperate pact with the Otherworld King. She becomes Lord of the Hunt and for centuries she rides, reaping wanderers’ souls. Until the night she meets a woman on a bloody battlefield – a Saxon queen with ice-blue eyes.

Queen Æthelburg of Wessex is a proven fighter, but after a battlefield defeat she finds her husband’s court turning against her. Yet King Ine needs Æthel more than ever: the dead kings of Wessex are waking, and Ine must master his bloodline’s ancient magic if they are to survive.

When their paths cross, Herla knows it’s no coincidence. Something dark and dangerous is at work in the Wessex court. As she and Æthel grow closer, Herla must find her humanity – and a way to break the curse – before it’s too late.

I’m a strong believer that stories evolve. Authors play off what comes before adding in their own concepts and reflections of the time they are written in. We get a certain shape to tales  and we start to classify this and that as sub-genres but none are ever really frozen in amber. They too will evolve. In Lucy Holland’s engrossing epic fantasy Song of the Huntress we have a impressive epic tale with three fascinating evolving characters that was the rare book I savoured and found subverted my expectations.

In 60AD Herla is a loyal warrior to Queen Boudica but fears the upcoming battle with the Romans to force them from their lands may be too much. Herla and a group of her fiercest warriors make their way to a place where the worlds are thin to make a deal with the King of the Otherworld Gwyn ap Nudd they seek great power. But such bargains often end in trickery and Herla instead finds herself transformed into the leader of the Wild Hunt a deadly rampaging magical force that leaves their slumber when the moon starts to die every month and take away souls (good or evil). As time passes Herla loses all memory of humanity.

In the early 8th Century Britain is a collection of small countries that uneasily sit alongside each other. King Ine and his Wife Queen AEthelburg rule Wessex as Saxons and are currently on the edge of war with the nearby Dumnonia ruled by Geraint and populated by Britons. Two mighty but very different cultures that also differ on religion with Wessex being part of the new Christianity while the Britons favour the older pagan beliefs. Treachery and battles continue to rage and Ine finds himself in a web of deceit to unpick and being changed by forces beyond his knowledge. For AEthelburg the warrior queen finds herself faced directly with the Wild Hunt and Herla finds a kindred spirit that may bring back her humanity but a higher price may still need to be paid.

I love a book that makes you think and slightly subverts your expectations and that combined with Holland’s approach to telling the story in the poetic writing style of an epic makes this a deliciously chewy read. What also impresses me is the evolution of the Historic fantasy that Holland makes work so well here. The gender-flipped character we have seen many tales take is here Herla the Huntress of the tale. It makes logical sense that Boudica would have understood women can do battle and Herla has a fascinating angle to the chapters that focus on her. She is all warrior; a touch inhuman both being now a being of magic but also she is an outsider to the world she finds centuries later. Powerful, deadly when needed and the question for her is can she re-find and keep her humanity that her encounters with AEthelburg a kindred spirit awakens.

With AEthelberg  we get the real-life warrior Queen. The woman who acts for Wessex and her husband by leading armies, fighting ably and isn’t afraid to destroy a lost fortress to not give the enemy any aid. She revels in this; she loves the feel of being a warrior and yet knows this makes her untrusted at court for not doing what a woman is believed to be and Ine never seems able to explain if they truly love this woman that they were made to marry as teenagers but now in their thirties feel slightly estranged. Meeting Herla creates a more obvious connection that both women feel.

Now it would be easy to think this then moves us into the sapphic fantasy that also is popular, but Holland adds a third character in Ine who is not simply the selfish husband that can be forgotten. In Ine we get a fascinating likeable asexual character who we rarely get as a lead in fantasy. If AEthelburg is seen as a rebel for being a woman who fights Ine is also out of character for the time being focus on laws, knowledge and is a more cerebral character than the key rival for the throne Ingild his brother. Ine though is equally challenged by the magical forces of the country and this new dynamic in the relationship that Herla creates. This ultimately creates a trio of interlinked stories that really make the story come alive.

What we have is a brilliant layering of conflicts. We have the Saxons versus Britons that Ine and Aethelberg are most familiar with, and Holland makes us see the UK as a very different place. Where what we know as counties are here Kingdoms warring and scheming for power and also very different in cultures. We get immersed in the way things work but not quite as we know them now. Kings here are not quite hereditary but need supporters (even after coronation); Christianity is a new force sitting over the Saxons while the Britons are very different in approach. We go from Wessex to Glastonbury to Tintagel and each area has its own feel and sense of place that we tend to lose in the modern age. It’s a long simmering battle that Ine is the latest key player in.

The tale focuses on Ine and Aethelberg though, so we also find Wessex is not a united front. It is a country itself made of Saxons and Britons uneasily living together which Ine is keen to maintain to prevent civil war. There are groups in his court looking to take their own power and when acts are made that may force war with Dumonia Ine finds himself having to stand up and decide what actions are to be taken. The cautious and thoughtful Ine must decide how to act and that more than words may be needed to resolve things.

The final conflict though is humanity versus the forces of the Otherworld and the enigmatic Gwynn ap Nudd pulling strings. The Wild Hunt seems more of a weapon now and Herla is in the process given more freedom than she has had for centuries. Running across Aethelberg fascinates her and the two join forces to save Wessex and possibly the rest of the world. What this means is we constantly are on the move from one front to the next and each chapter focuses on one of the three characters and one of these conflicts. Holland weaves into the human intrigue the appropriate unearthly forces and magic here is appropriately wild but also based on pagan beliefs that in particular means Ine is keenly enveloped by. The sensation is of this not being basically local human politics but a key point in the world of magic that could destroy humanity. The forces of the Otherworld we meet beyond Herla are much less human and quite cruel and ruthless so are very able opponents in their own right. It creates soe big stakes that fully engross the reader. Fans of Sistersong by Holland may also find some echoes of the past given a nod to which are rewards for constant readers yet do not require reading the previous book.

But for me the key element that I loved was seeing how these three characters all evolve. Its not purely the romance that hovers between AEthelburg and Herla but also the intriguing relationship of AEthelburg and Ine who do love each other but Ine’s asexuality is something they’ve never really got to understand. At the same time each character is forced to be outside their nature. Herla has to act now on her own initiative again and not simply on instinct. Aethelburg so used to fighting now must build alliances and think strategically. This neatly mirror Ine’s arc to move from ideas and the King forced to stand alone without AEthelburg’s protection and often get into a fight himself. Putting these characters outside their comfort zones means each has a personal battle to fulfil and as the tale moves towards the epic conclusion, they all have to decide how best to work together. This is where having three adults rather than those on the cusp of growing up really works. The three leads must consider bigger implications and know that the world doesn’t always need simple and/or answers. It’s a refreshingly mature fantasy tale as we have characters actually talking to one another about what to do next.

Song of the Huntress is filled with rich character work; carries a sense of place and epic magic that really worked for me. Holland’s more sombre almost percussive writing gives the tale a beat of an epic myth being told to you than being read and I enjoyed savouring it rather than racing to the finish line. It also adds to the growing evolution of such tales I think we can see evolving in fantasy and I’m very much there for that! Strongly recommended!