The Hunt of the Grimalkin

The Grimalkin #1

by Dani Swanson

A young girl wakes up in the middle of a forest, without any clue of how she got there, where she’s going, or who she is. Lost and confused her only companion is a small orange cat that is showing her the way home. As if being lost and alone wasn’t bad enough, she is being stalked by a dark shadowy creature – the Grimalkin. She learns on her adventures that there are two sides to every story, and that nothing is ever as it seems when there is magic involved.

Genres: Fantasy

229 pages, Paperback

First published March 22, 2017

About the author

I was born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota. With a love of stories, I majored in English Lit for my undergrad and Human Services for my Masters. I started the writing process after suffering a major concussion. The Hunt of the Grimalkin has a lot of weird things that I had dreamt about when suffering from my head injury.

Currently residing in Minneapolis, where I enjoy painting, writing and making other pretty things; all while trying to leave the world a little better than I found it.

Reviews

[Kris Mauna · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an intriguing read.. Dani Swanson's writing is absolutely stunning! She writes in a beautiful way that truly captured this world she has created, and all of the details were perfect. The story opens up with a young girl waking up and unsure of where she is or who she is. I felt just as confused as she did, and that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. It only made me want to continue to read the story.

I feel like I can't say too much about the plot without spoiling it, so I'm just going to say that it was interesting. There were a lot of magical creatures within such as witches, fairies, elves, and more. The story was paced well between being told the background surrounding this world and all the action and twists. And I enjoyed the characters! I won't mention names, but we eventually learn more about our main character and a few more characters are slowly introduced as well. I liked them all, and our young girl is easy to root for and connect with.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. The writing was what pulled me in and made me want to keep reading. I wish I was able to connect with the characters a little more, even though I did like them, but I still felt as if something was missing. It just wasn't fully my cup of tea, but I think a younger audience or someone who is looking for a magical adventure will enjoy this book!

[Melina Lobo · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Hunt of the Grimalkin is Book 1 in the magical fantasy trilogy by Dani Swanson. Although it's roughly a 200 pages book, it is fast paced and can be completed in a matter of hours because the initial mystrey of the book is enough to pull you in. It keeps you hooked till you get all the answers you want, however, since this is the first book of the series it does leave you with unanswered questions until you read it's successors.
Although the premise of the book is interesting, there are a couple of things that did hamper my overall experience. The writing style could be better and there needs to be a little more focus on the editing of the book. I've read a more recent book of the author (The Winding Woods) so I know that it could be better.
The characters are impressive, however the 'other characters' have made a better impression on me in this part of the trilogy compared to our main character but hopefully as I read more about her I will be able to form a different opinion. The other characters are an integral part to the upcoming sequels so I'll be talking more about them in the next reviews.
I do love the worldbuilding! The author's got a natural talent when it comes to making you feel like you are sucked into a whole different universe and her incorporation of magical beings is always welcomed!
Overall, it's an ok start, bug could be better. However, i do think that this would be suitable for a younger crowd who are starting to get into books on fantasy and magic.

[Laura's Lil Library · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a magical book filled with creatures, spells, and mystery that will keep you asking questions the whole read through.
This book was so fast-paced, which normally I love, but this time made it hard to really dive deep into any situation that was happening. We would find the problem, fix it, and move on. It gave the book an episodic feel or a video game feel, where we would have the main plot in the back of our minds, but there would be lots of side quests along the way that we would fix then move on from. This made it very easy to read like a movie, I could see the film happening in my head. But sometimes it moved so quickly that I had to read every word in order to not miss a major event.
I wasn't a fan of how all the characters were physically described with food.
There were a few times where I felt like the characters did something that didn't make sense, and it was never explained why they did that rather than the logical thing to do.
There also seemed to be some inconsistencies with the literal print of the book (sometimes inner thoughts are italicized and sometimes they weren't, and sometimes certain words were capitalized and then they weren't later on in the book) and with themes in the book (if the magic is elemental, then what is with all the other non-elemental magic?) Maybe some of these will be more explained in the next book (which I plan on reading). I also had a lot of grammar mistakes in my copy, but that is bad editing and I am not blaming the book for it.
However, the vibes of this book were amazing! The setting and the atmosphere were there, making this the perfect fall read. The forest was a great starting place, and the way the kingdom is set up, I love.
So I recommend this to anyone who loves fantasy, dnd, fall reads, or anything witchy!

[Dana Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not sure why the other reviews have a lower stars amount. This book is great and made me want to read her whole series. There's magic and adventure. The book is about finding yourself and overcoming obstacles that life throws at you. You should read this series.

[Mike Hatten · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome story! A great mystery with multiple layers of villains chasing after the main character. Magic and mystery fill this story and I highly recommend the entire series.

[Lidvald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Entertaining

I enjoyed the story. Many nteresting twists and characters. I'm looking forward to reading the next book in the series.

[Melissa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oof, this writing. It feels like the work of a middle-schooler with the typos and lack of context sometimes. She will mention the main character getting up when she had just been walking, no mention of sitting down. The main character loses consciousness at one point, but the dialogue continues on as if nothing happened only to learn that she had been out for four days. Why no break in the text to indicate a time jump? This is more than just amateur writing; it's as if the author has never read a book before either! Characters repeat themselves as if the author forgot she already gave them that line, and countless times I had to reread the same passages to see if I missed something (no, it was the author who missed something). The main doesn't even have a name for awhile due to her memory loss, which leads to problems in knowing who's speaking sometimes, and the author could have fixed that problem by using first-person POV since she's not following other characters or using omniscience. She also changes verb tense randomly from past to present. I know it was self-published, but there are still so many typos that could have been easily caught by someone with a basic handle on the English language (ex., using "to" instead of "too;" "insight" instead of "in sight"). I'm not even halfway through, but it is a STRUGGLE. I bought it because it was a local author and had a cool cover, but woof.

"Thea went from a fast walk to a sprint, then started to run, with Fig in tow." In what universe is a sprint slower than running? WTF? I feel like I'm going crazy here... 🤪

I'm pretty sure some of my childhood first drafts made more sense than some of this book.

I'm giving my very honest review, which her editors should have done before this went to printing. Then maybe she could have developed the story arc better and smoothed out the writing style.

[Patty · Rating 3 out of 5]

At it’s core, there is a good story. However, like many self-published books, it needs a good editor and proofreader. The book is full of awkward sentences, redundant adjectives, and occasionally just wrong word usage.

If your can ignore this, pretend you are reading an unfinished draft, then the story is really good. The use of the character’s amnesia to show is the world as she discovers it works well. The world is full of magical creatures and the mystery of what happened to cause our heroine to Lose her memory.

I am looking forward to reading the next book in the series, both to learn what happens next and to see how the author’s writing has improved with practice.

[Hollie Edlund · Rating 2 out of 5]

While this book had a lot of intriguing moments, I found myself saying “What? A Boar named Doug?”
There were some typos and it felt like a high school student writing this book.
I was on chapter 4 or 5 and felt like I couldn’t continue, but picked it up later to give it another chance.
I did finish and did want to know what happened. Just a little cringe to read.

[Savanah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I absolutely loved the story line of this series! It was really easy to get into this book and I read the whole thing in a day. There are a couple of grammatical errors, but overall if you are witchy and like a little suspense this is a great book for you!

[orangereads · Rating 2 out of 5]

*2.5

I like the story and am intrigued to see where it goes, however, I wasn't the biggest fan of the writing style and there were some editing mistakes that took me out of the story.