Book Review: The Wolf Hunter by Henri Loevenbruck (Gallica #1)

Note: The title of this book and has been translated into English by me for the reading comprehension of this blog's viewers. The original title reads Le Louvetier from the Gallica trilogy.

I said a while back that I might take a look at the sequel trilogy following the Moïra trilogy. My Dad actually got me the entire trilogy secondhand as a gift for completing this year of college, so I have three more books to review! Let's dive in. Spoilers ahead.

In an alternate historical version of France known as Gallica, a young man named Bohem watches his family be killed and is constantly hunted down by various forces. In this age, creatures known as "Mists" (mythical creatures and wolves) are consistently being wiped out. Bohem and some friends he meets along the way are determined to put a stop to this before the Mists go extinct.

I am very glad to say that this book is in many ways better than the Moïra books were. While I liked those, they were very bare bones fantasy and just weren't my favorites. But I was pleasantly surprised by The Wolf Hunter.

For starters, the formatting in my (Dutch release) edition is way better than any of the Moïra books were. It was way more obvious when the perspective shifted between each character and where everyone was and where their allegiances lay. In the first trilogy I also had trouble keeping up with the politics, but so far in this book all of that went by smoothly.

I also personally found the realm of Gallica to be more interesting than Gaelia. Both are decent fantasy setting, but I personally like Gallica a lot more. It just gives off a very different vibe, and a less "standard fantasy" one. 

We also get some thrilling revelations and events in this one. Bohem is revealed to actually be the child of Aléa and Erwan. Not only that, but they both failed in bringing in the age of peace in Gaelia like they'd hoped. And the both of them died. Some of the Druids have actually traveled south and sought out a powerful and mystical being called Lailoken in order to hopefully restore the Saîman. And, finally, Mjolln returns. I was actually glad to see he was alive, after he became one of my favorites from the first trilogy. 

So, yeah, quite a few major bombs dropped here. I wasn't too attached to the first trilogy, but still attached enough for these bombs to hurt. It sucks seeing that the future Aléa worked so hard on never came to be and that things in fact got worse. 

I did like this book a lot. However, it does still have a few less great elements. For starters: Bohem's personality is not that defined or interesting. Certain elements of his character certainly are, such as his connection and affinity for the Mists and him being able to enter Djar, but he feels very lacking in his character development. The only development we get is that he goes from being a pacifist to slowly becoming a fighter, but that's literally all. 

Also, one of the characters here feels like a recycled character from the first trilogy. There, we had a woman who married a king in order to manipulate him and gain power. Here, we have the exact same type of character. As far as I can tell, the only difference is that the one from the Moïra trilogy was low-born and the one in Gallica was high-born. But, like, so far, that's all the difference we get. We don't know the motivation of the character in Gallica yet, but so far they really do feel like two of the same characters, pretty much.

However, that aside, I greatly enjoyed The Wolf Hunter and am actually really looking forward to the second book. Loevenbruck definitely stepped it up in terms of quality, and I look forward to seeing him improve even more.

Rating: 4/5