The Huntress: A Novel

Review 5 stars From this novel’s opening with the Huntress deciding to move into the shadows, I was engrossed in the story, the characters, settings, the history and Kate Quinn’s writing. I was in awe of the writing throughout and discovered another wonderful author to follow. I could see everything unfold as we were introduced to the main players. The novel is told through the senses of three POVs – if you don’t count that brief tempting glimpse into the head of the Huntress in the Prologue. First, seventeen-year-old Jordan McBride who’s determined to become a photographer post-WWII and is inspired by the likes of Margaret Bourke-White – one of my heroines. She is pleased when her widowed father, who owns a Boston antiques shop, forms a relationship with Austrian widow Annelise Weber – but she is also suspicious. Suspicions that are heightened and dismissed or disproved but stirred up again. Then, in 1950s West Germany, the reader meets British war correspondent Ian Graham who has become a Nazi hunter, aided by Tony Rodomovky, a ‘Yank’ with Polish-Hungarian blood. But other people want to move on from focusing on Nazi crimes, especially the judges – the focus has shifted onto the ‘Commies’. However, for Ian, finding the elusive Huntress is personal – a reveal not rushed by the author. Finally, we are in harsh and remote Siberia, where my favourite character, Nina Markova needs to escape her father. Facing tough prospects if she remains, she risks everything to join the…

** WARNING SPOILERS** When you're a seventeen-year-old girl, your mother is dead, and your father brings home a new lady, your world can suddenly be unbalanced. "Who is she, Dad? " begins Kate Quinn's - and that question takes most of the book to answer on all different levels. Jordan McBride, a the teenage photographer into whose life Anna intrudes is a primary POV character, and the eyes through whom we see the United States portion of the story unfold. The new woman, Anneliese Weber aka Anna McBride is a complex character so expert at acting and deception that one wonders if she even knows the answer herself. On one level, cold and calculating, and on another sentimental. For me, it was obvious from the first two pages that she was Die Jagerin, The Huntress. This wasn't a mystery, but rather an unfolding. Quinn does a masterful job of moving back and forth in time between her present-day of the 1950s and the wartime. The backstory is given in flashback chapters that slowly unravel the puzzle of what happened - the prolog points to the murder of six Jewish children by a woman. She fed them, then she shot them. Another major POV character is Nina Borisovna Markova, a waif born to an alcoholic abuser in the wilds of Siberia, who becomes one of the Nachthexen, the Night Witches of the Soviet air force, bedeviling the Nazis. If you're unfamiliar with the Night Witches, it is worth reading up on them, but Quinn makes them come to life in a way you're unlikely to forget. Nina…

Loved this book so much, couldn’t put it down! Great story. Characters are developed and interesting and while I figured out certain things early on I like the fact that in the end everything is revealed and explained. You will not be disappointed reading this book! Guaranteed.

Overall: I loved this book! An obsessively readable historical novel told in three storylines about courageous women who dare to break the mold of what is expected of them. I loved the characters, the story, learned a lot, and overall just great reading and could not put this down. Even better than The Alice Network. 9/10 The Good: This novel is told in three storylines and focused on the time before, during, and after WWII. At the center of “The Huntress” is Die Jägerin, a woman accused of committing unspeakable war crimes against children in Poland during World War II. The novel begins with this unnamed woman on the run, and then breaks into the different story lines. The three storyines are Nina, Jordan, and Ian. Nina Markova is a “Night Witch,” a famed group of all Russian female bomber pilots during WWII. Her storyline follows for the longest period of time and was my favorite. She is fierce, brace, unstoppable, and a true force to be reckoned with, absolutely loved her character. I did not know anything about the Night Witches so was entranced with this story from the beginning. Jordan McBride is an aspiring photographer living in Boston during the 1950s. Ian Graham is a former war correspondent that is obsessed with bringing Nazi war criminals to justice. The depth and development of all these characters is brilliant and Quinn does an even better job at interconnecting all three storylines. The author’s note at the end of the book does a great job detailing the…

The Huntress is the finest novel I have read in the past couple of years. First of all, there are five leading characters, three of whom narrate from their POVs, and each of them is likeable. Even the woman who is the targeted huntress/villain is, at times and in ways, a sympathetic character. The three most important characters are all women, and as one reviewer put it, "magnificently audacious." The Siberian Nina is indeed a force of nature; Kate Quinn's research to create Nina, and her experiences, so credibly is admirable to a writer/researcher of historical novels. The writing is wonderful, the pacing pulls us along steadily, anxious to turn the pages. Everything rings true and accurate as to places and historical scenarios [except one thing, see below], and I love writers who immerse fictional characters in actual history, with only understandable creative license...the author's 24-page "note" explains all the background and research that went into this extraordinary novel. Finally, Quinn also favors us with a satisfying ending. I don't like to be short-changed or left hanging after 500+ pages, and Quinn does not do this. Now, the minor blip: Quinn knows nothing of guns. She has people hunting ducks...with "hunting rifles." Then she says the duck hunters go off with "guns broken over their arms," a clear reference to shotguns. Someone is killed by an "old gun" with Damascus barrels that blows up when modern ammo is used...this refers to a shotgun, and the only…