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When Margaret Welty spots the legendary hala, the last living mythical creature, she knows the Halfmoon Hunt will soon follow. Whoever is able to kill the hala will earn fame and riches, and unlock an ancient magical secret. If Margaret wins the hunt, it may finally bring her mother home. While Margaret is the best sharpshooter in town, only teams of two can register, and she needs an alchemist. Weston Winters isn’t an alchemist--yet. Fired from every apprenticeship he's landed, his last chance hinges on Master Welty taking him in. But when Wes arrives at Welty Manor, he finds only Margaret and her bloodhound Trouble. Margaret begrudgingly allows him to stay, but on one condition: he must join the hunt with her. Although they make an unlikely team, Wes is in awe of the girl who has endured alone on the outskirts of a town that doesn’t want her, in this creaking house of ghosts and sorrow. And even though Wes disrupts every aspect of her life, Margaret is drawn to him. He, too, knows what it's like to be an outsider. As the hunt looms closer and tensions rise, Margaret and Wes uncover dark magic that could be the key to winning the hunt - if they survive that long.
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3.5: Enjoyed the alchemy and magic system of the book, but would have liked to see more world building. Also thought the religions weren't very well developed - i.e just Judaism and Catholicism with different names. The ending also fell flat: after all the build up about the Hala being sacred, it did not make sense that the characters gave in and just killed it.
0Phenomenal and utterly captivating; to say I devoured this book would be an understatement.
To start with the general setting: the world building here is pretty engaging. Margaret and Wes' home of New Albion may have different religions and beliefs and traditions than ours, but with familiar threads of class struggles, bigotry, politics, and community dynamics. A shout-out as always too for some delightful casual LGBTQ+ representation. I would liked to have seen a little more contextualization of New Albion within the larger world, for instance I had to do some guesswork around how technologically advanced they seem to be, and there were only a few references to advancements made via alchemy. There was a moderate level of fantasy but as the story seemed to take place in a reality fairly similar to ours, it was pretty easy to adapt to the few distinctions (namely, alchemy and a singular mythological creature).
New Albion and the halfmoon hunt are an interesting enough premise, but wouldn't really shine on their own without the punch packed by the incredible depth to Margaret and Wes' characters. The two of them (individually and together) are what absolutely carried the novel. They were both given such rich histories and motivations that you can't help but root for their success, with such complexity that they almost leap off the page. They both have so much to prove to others and themselves, so much adversity to overcome, and so many questions of who they are and where they come from and what they want and what they're willing to do to get there that they are forced to grapple with. They come apart and together over and over in the context of the hunt for the mythical hala. The romance between them isn't forced, it's undeniable. They each have walls so high you can hardly bear it, and each page is another brick coming down until they can see that they have more similarities than they might care to admit, and that their differences prove to be the perfect complements. I want to also stress that so much of what I enjoyed about this is that they both truly stand in their own right. They are infuriating and wonderful alone, and infuriating and wonderful together. They aren't written as two parts of a whole, but rather two wholes that together may amount to more than the sum of their parts. Really just such an absorptive read - I'd highly recommend it.
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