Hunter’s Claim by S.E. Smith

Hunter's ClaimNarrated by David Brenin

Jesse Sampson’s whole world is one of struggle. When the aliens arrived, the world as she knew it ended and a new one of strife and hunger began. Now she hides and steals to provide for herself and her two younger sisters.

It is on a scavenging mission that she is forced to hide from one of the human hunter groups. These humans capture anyone in sight for their own ends and apparently they have captured a gold mine – a live alien male. Jesse, while not a fan of the aliens whose arrival killed her father, cannot stand by as humans butcher a living being for fun. This one choice sets Jesse and her sisters, on a new path and opens the door for a new start on another planet.

My request to review Hunter’s Claim was based on its alien paranormal element. I am a big fan of this genre, and have been since Johanna Lindsey’s Ly-San-Ter series. While this book’s setup was intriguing with its idea of alien beings descending to Earth to help its people, it fell flat for me in its delivery. The blurb provides most of the backstory, leaving the book to struggle to establish a sense of setting. I could not tell what part of the earth the story talked about, what the general area around Jesse; the only piece of concrete information was the fact that she and her sisters lived in a collapsed parking garage.  I wanted a romance featuring an alien being, using alien technology and talking about alien worlds. The only thing described as alien is Hunter’s appearance. If you had taken out his description, this could have been any old contemporary romance.

Also, Jesse’s character needs more fleshing out. I understand her motivations for hating aliens; the author does provide plausible explanations. However, I feel Jesse seems to get over these issues and goes pro-alien too quickly. Admittedly, this book is a short one, coming in under five and half hours; still, I would have liked more interactions between Jessie and Hunter to see why she changes her mind.

David Brenin is a new-to-me narrator and not a terrible one at that in Hunter’s Claim. Initially, I was surprised at the choice of a male narrator as most of the book is told from Jessie’s perspective but I got over it. Overall, I noticed no production quality issues or audible inhalations (point in his favor!) but there also isn’t anything particularly extraordinary about his performance either. A few of his pronunciations are odd, making words like “shake”, “metal”, and “rubble” sound opposite of what I expected. His vowels are more rounded instead of hard. I’m open to listening to another of his narrations. Again, Brenin isn’t a bad narrator, however, some of his character choices in Hunter’s Claim are a little odd. I would be more than willing to try him again.

Diana


Narration:  C

Book Content:  C-

Steam Factor:  For your burning ears only

Violence:  Escalated fighting

Genre:  Fantasy Romance

Publisher:  S.E. Smith

 

Hunter’s Claim was provided to AudioGals by the author for review.

 

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