The second book of THE LUMINARIES, THE HUNTING MOON follows Winnie's attempt to uncover her father's clues while her town is obsessed with finding the wrong monster.

This series is such a good, atmospheric autumnal read (for all it's set in the Spring!) We get to spend more time in the forest, this time on sleuthing (that goes wrong) instead of for trials. Old monsters return and there are new ones too as Winnie begins to seriously question the truths she's lived by.

I really enjoyed the exploration of PTSD. Winnie went through a lot in THE LUMMINARIES and is dealing with the consequences of that here. It isn't helped that her town and its culture have jarringly different responses to it than her, pushing her further into rebellion against its way of life. The contrast also helps highlight how much she is struggling and why.

This book delves deeper into the mysteries set up in the first book, which was very satisfying to get answers to theories (and I was smug about getting some of them!) Not all the mysteries are fully solved, but one of the pretty big ones it, culminating in a big action sequence at the end. Plus, there are of course (it's a Susan Dennard book!) new mysteries set up and the unsolved are deepened.

The audiobook is well narrated by Caitlin Davis, altering pitch to distinguish between narration, compendium extracts, and updates from a Luminaries' website. The overall atmospheric tone of the book is captured with ease, with expert use of speeding up and slowing down the narration for tension and pacing.

I am very excited for the final book in this series now!

So I worked out two parts of the plot in the first book and had them confirmed in this book.

If a good YA very predictable and easy to read, I love the mythology and the magic systems.

Thankyou to NetGalley and Daphne Press for a free e-arc in exchange of an honest review!

This was a great follow-up to the Luminaries! I enjoyed the storyline and that we got some answers to the questions that were raised in the first book. I would have prefered a bit more action, but overall it's a great book!

There is a reason Susan Dennard is on my always read list.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Luminaries, I devoured it within a couple of days, and Susan kept up expectations with The Hunting Moon. We learn more about the Luminaries and Diana's, and cement Winnie has a character you can't help but love. The pace is just perfect and while the twist was a little bit obvious it doesn't detract from the story. The overall tone of both books feel younger than the Witchlands series, but they're just as fun!

Culture runs thicker than blood.

Thank you NetGalley and Daphne Press for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review!

The Hunting Moon is the sequel to The Luminaries which follows Winnie Wednesday as she tries to find her place amongst the Luminaries after her family was welcomed back into the community after being exiled.

Winnie, now known as The Girl Who Got Bitten (much to her frustration), is navigating life following the events at the end of book one. Still feeling very much alone with her knowledge of the Whisperer and trying to decipher the clues her father left her, Winnie is on a mission to get answers. The only person who can help her is Jay Friday, and that's just complicated.

This is a really interesting YA fantasy/supernatural/paranormal series. I love the idea of the Luminaries and what they do. The second book picks up immediately where book one left off and we're thrown straight into following Winnie and she searches for answers to everything that is revealed in the first book.

It was interesting to see Winnie navigating the trauma of the events of book one, and how while she got everything she thought she wanted, she still feels something is wrong.

I really enjoy the the setting of this book. It's a great blend of mysterious small town and the supernatural, and everyday life just fits in amongst the horror. It was nice to see Winnie beginning to understand how the Luminary community copes with everything they see as she is processing what she has been through.

Similarly to The Luminaries, I struggled a little with the pacing and was waiting for it to pick up. I did however thoroughly enjoy it once it did pick up! There were some really nice clues in the writing for what may or may not be revealed towards the end of the book, while slightly predictable it was still fun.

Like book one, I was just wishing for a bit more. I thought we would learn a little more than we did about things that were revealed in the first book, but it was nice to have some of the major plot elements revealed. Some of the reveals did feel a bit sudden, or I wasn't quite sure how we got there.

Very interested to see where this goes. Thank you again to NetGalley and Daphne Press for the arc.

This was a great follow up to The Luminaries. I just love how detailed and interesting the lore is behind this series and the characters are well-rounded and believable. I finished it in one sitting, although it didn’t have the punch that the first one did, I will be eagerly awaiting the last instalment.

Following directly on from the events of The Luminaries, The Hunting Moon follows Winnie as she tries to become a hunter, uncover the truth about her father and work out what the whisperers is and find the werewolf threatening the town all whilst dealing with her new found fame after her family were outcasts for four years and trying to get to grips with her feeling for Jay.
This book was a little slow to start but the action ramped up towards the end. Soke of the plot pounts above wwre nit andwered but being a trilogy im sure they will be resolved in the third book and I cannot wait for the third book to see how Winnies story ends.

I did like The Luminaries and I truly wanted to enjoy this book, however I struggled to finish it. I think I was expecting more ‘monsters’ and more action, but I didn’t find it.

I like the way it’s written, and I like how the characters are portrayed. I like how there are many different characters playing different roles in the story. The whole idea is very interesting.

Maybe it’s me that was expecting something that didn’t happen, but after I finished the book I was left with the feeling that such an amazing plot idea could have been so much more.

I’m sorry I couldn’t give it a higher rating, I’m truly sad about it.

I just absolutely adored this! Thank you to the author and publisher for gifting me a copy of it. Ever since reading The Luminaries earlier this year I have been waiting for this, and it didn’t disappoint.

I thought there was great character development throughout, especially for Winnie and Jay. It was nice to see them both open up a bit more.

The new creatures in the forest were on point. I also loved how we got to know more about the creatures we’d already met as well. It was also interesting to learn more about the Diana’s. They weren’t like how I expected, which was great. I loved being surprised.

I felt like the cliffhangers from book 1 were nicely wrapped up and so excited that this book was also left on a cliffhanger! I can’t wait to find out what happens in book 3!

If you love a fantasy with out of this world creatures, then this is a series for you!

I absolutely loved The Luminaries so I was really excited to read the follow up. The Hunting Moon did not disappoint!

We pick up immediately after the end of The Luminaries and Winnie is struggling to understand everything that she has learned since joining the trials. Her actions in the Forest have made her infamous and given her everything she thought she wanted, but with everything she thought she knew falling apart, does she even want it anymore?

We follow Winnie as she tries to get to the bottom of what’s been going on, and basically uncovers yet more questions.

The Wolf question from the first book is resolved and turned out exactly as I had guessed in the first book.

We also got a little bit of romance which was fun!

Overall, The Hunting Moon is an exciting sequel and really progresses the story and further develops all the characters. I’ve got the Illumicrate edition ordered and I can’t wait for it to arrive!

Thankyou to NetGalley and Daphne Press for a free e-arc in exchange of an honest review!

I loved this book... but i knew i would as it was a great continuation of the first book in the series which i also loved!

The atmosphere in this is great
Its easy reading
Interesting world and setting
Great characters
AND a nice mystery element that we are still trying to figure out

Looking forward to the next!
4 stars

Rate: 5 stars! ⭐

I really have to thank Daphne Press because I couldn't expect a more perfect gift for October than reading one of the books I was waiting the most for this last part of the year.

During the lasts months I considered several times if my struggle with fantasy is due to their target. Maybe I'm too "old" for young adults? Could it be the reason I don't feel the urge to read them or find them immediately appealing when I start reading them than it was before?

It could be an answer, of course. The other one is that the market is full of releases and perhaps the uniqueness and the originality we could find once has withered. Or it's a combination of both, who knows. In short, the truth is I became very picky regarding fantasy AND young adult books.

Thanks heaven, Susan Dennard remains one of my beacons in the night and it was effortless to dive into The Luminaries's story and loving every single page. Why is that?
I tried to came up with a list related to what I think are the winning point of this series, confirmed by my reading of The Hunting Moon:

- an interesting urban setting with lots of original elements;

- a protagonist that is witty but also funny to read;

- a mystery you have to unravel with Winnie;

- a perfect writing style that makes you smile but also empathize with the story.

Hemlock Falls with its deadly wood is the perfect setting for this mysterios story. I adored the fact that the supernatural element blends perfectly with everyday life, and if we take away the fantasy element the structure created by Susan Dennard is able to sustain itself. We have a real town, with its gossips, its whispers and dynamics you can see in any other one. It makes this story beliavable and concrete, like you can really expect that there could be some places in the world with a dark wood that could allure people by night, where dangerous creatures appear to hunt them.

I also adored since the very beginning the idea to divide the Luminaries' families with surnames derived by the days of the weeks. Every one of them has some peculiar trait, a personal crest and usually a determined role in the Luminaries' society. Plus, I also liked so much the fact that school too is slightly different from the "normal" one, with are lessons dedicated to train the best possible generation of Luminaries.

But they're not alone. There are also the Dianas, hidden somewhere but maybe too close than the reader (and maybe Winnie) thinks, and I'm dying to know more about them! In this second volume, the plot starts to show more elements of conjunctions between the two groups and I can't wait to see further and serious interactions between them. One thing for now is crystal clear: they're not very keen to interact with each other in a friendly way!😱

Back to the setting, I really appreciated how the wood seems to be a living being, and how Winnie interacts with it and its creatures (there's a scene that broke my heart... it was sod moving! I'm sure you'll understand what I'm talking about when you read it), but also the atmosphere that surrounds the entire story.
It's like being constantly surrounded by fog. It could be lighter, or thicker, but you're not completely able to see what or who is around you. And that is a sort of protection sometimes, but it also keeps you on your toes because danger can arrive when you least expect it.

As Jay says, you just have to trust the wood or not.

This kind of mood fits perfectly with the mystery related to (but not only) Winnie's father being accused to be part of the Dianas, and it was interesting to read all the doubts our protagonist has regarding him being framed. Is that true? Or is it a trap that will destroy the only chance Winnie's family gained to be readmitted in The Luminaries' strick society?

I think that Susan Dennard, as I've already noticed in The Witchlands series, cleverly uses this situation to make the main character (and the reader) question herself about her entire society. Are the Luminaries always right in their believes? Is everything solely devided into right or wrong?
It's amazing how a novel sometimes make us consider the complexity of reality, and seeing the current geopolitical situation, I think this is a very actual theme.
Are we able to properly judge what happens around us, especially when other inflences come into the equation? I don't think so. I believe that the difference is always to question ourselves and not only consider true what others tell us is.
Winnie embodies that, with her tenacity, her strenght, her rage about what happened to her family in the past and what they had to deal for all those years. You can feel her sadness, the betrayal she felt and also the difficulty she has trusting others, even if she wants to. At the same time, I really appreciated the confrontation she had with Jay's aunt. I think it's good to have someone that reminds us we're not always the centre of the world, and even when we're hurt, we should not forget to consider who is around us.

Finally, the writing style. Even if I could recognize Susan Dennard was behind those pages, I found the prose a little bit different from The Witchlands series. It was more concise, but certainly not poor, and it had an ironical way of telling the story that makes it unique. It didn't only make me smile but, at the same time, I think it helped to get attached to the story and the main characters ( and Jay is a cupcake and I love him so much 💙).

In the end, I think that even if it wasn't entirely a transition book, is true that here Susan planted more than one seed that we'll have to discover properly in the next novel. So, I'm SO curious about what happened to more than one characters and I need to have a date for the third book's release. Give me news!!😭

I loved this sequel, which is a follow up to The Luminaries. Susan Dennard has woven another captivating tale that walks the perfectly fine line between whimsy and darkness. I appreciated the deeper dive into the characters and the sweet, slow burn romance. And although I had guessed the big twist before it happened, it didn't lessen the impact - as the ending ramped up, I found myself turning the pages at lightning speed as The Hunting Moon hurtled toward a very satisfying end. I can't wait for the third instalment!

Thank you to Daphne Press for providing an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was lucky enough to be approved for both the eARC and the Audiobook which allowed me to be completely absorbed in this book all day.
I loved the first instalment in this series and The Hunting Moon drops us two weeks after where we left off at the end of The Luminaries.
I honestly felt like I’d never left Hemlock Falls. Winnie remains a brilliant and engaging protagonist as she has to deal with the fallouts from book one, the mysterious note from her father, PTSD from her trials, and Jay whatever that is. Not that she cares...
Dennard’s writing is atmospheric and the world of Hemlock Falls is so well built, so vivid I can almost smell it coming off the page, Sooz has a real gift for World building and characterisation. Jay, feels like a real teenage boy making idiot choices just as Winnie is consumed by her own problems and trying to navigate her own trauma- I love the way she's relearning friendships and the way her friends are adapting to the way the trials have affected her.
The twists and bombs are expertly plotted and detonated and the epilogue left me screaming into Susan's DM's when I was horrified to find l'd run out of pages and had to wait for the next book for the ever growing list of theories I need confirming.

The audiobook narration by Caitlin Davies is outstanding. Her voice is crisp and clear and I swiftly forgot I was listening to a narrator and became utterly absorbed as I completed my list of household chores. This for me is the best indicator of good audiobook narration that I'm not distracted or jarred by their voice!

Honestly this series is brilliant and if you want darkly magical forests, monsters, mystery, intrigue, slow burn romance, and incredible supportive friendship dynamics get on this amazing series.

DNF - I remember being super excited for the first book and while I dind't dislike it I didn't love it. I was hoping the second installment would be different but I just couldn't get into it.
Maybe I'll try again another time.

Winnie Wednesday passed the deadly hunter trials and has been welcomed back into the Luminaries. But, Winnie has more questions than answers: Jay is still distant, Winnie's father's clues about the Dianas don't make any sense, and no one believes her about the new Nightmare she discovered - The Whisperer.

I enjoyed this sequel more than the first novel. I remember being so intrigued by the Dianas and the mystery surrounding Winnie's father in the first novel, that I was disappointed we didn't make any progress about it. So, I was so excited to FINALLY get more content about these two aspects in this sequel.

I am unsure how I feel about the pacing of the novel though. Most of the novel felt slow-paced while all the good action and development occurred near the end.

I did enjoy Winnie and Jay's relationship development. There's a lot of cuteness in their blossoming relationship; which, for YA, I think is perfectly awkward and sweet. The personal development Jay experienced throughout the novel was great to read about too.

Overall, I enjoyed this sequel and I can't wait for the final novel in the trilogy!

This book isn’t even released yet and I can’t wait for the next one!

Winnie now has to deal with the aftermath of achieving her goal without ruining it for her family, while simultaneously working to figure out what is going on in Hemlock Falls.

The Hunting Moon was everything I loved from book 1 without being overly dial up to justify its existence or stale in repetition. It was like pealing off a layer to get to the juicier bits of the story. If, like me, you enjoyed The Luminaries then you won't be disappointed by this fast paced sequel (except when it finishes and you have to wait for the next one)

loved the first book in the series so was so looking forward the this one! It didn't disappoint the twist and plot kept me engaged throughout!

So, it may surprise some of you that I’m even reviewing this book given how little I enjoyed the first book. But as I have liked books from Dennard in the past, I wanted to give this series another go. Some of my negative reaction to the first book came down to aspects of the plot and the writing that I wasn’t expecting. Namely, the fact that it was a contemporary fantasy story and the style of writing itself. Knowing both of those factors now, I wanted to see what my experience of the second book in this series would be like. And, while it still wasn’t a huge success for me, I did end up liking this one more than the first.

Let’s start with what I did like! While the YA and adult fantasy genre has been having a moment in the sun for the last few years, I think this book stands out from the pack in the heavy focus on magical creatures and various monsters. Usually, you have a book that has one monster/mythical creature (like the “Mothman” books we’ve seen this fall), but not a book like this that includes a number of different supernatural beings. Speaking of supernatural, this aspect of the storytelling definitely reminded me of the TV show, “Supernatural,” and that’s a pretty high compliment as far as I’m concerned!

As for the plot itself, I was able to stay mostly invested, however I wasn’t overly surprised by any of the twists and turns that we saw. In fact, there was one particular “reveal” that I thought was so obvious that surely there was something else going on, that characters did in fact know this thing and simply weren’t really addressing it for a mysterious reason, or something! I even went back and looked at my ebook of the first book to confirm that no, I guess this particularly thing wasn’t revealed and was, indeed, still a “mystery.”

Much of Winnie’s story and the romance were just OK for me, too. Having a better sense of the type of book that I was going to read did help set my expectations more appropriately. But this book did highlight that while I can still enjoy YA books, sometimes greatly so, there are distinct examples where a book is not going to fit for the simple fact that I am well past the target age group. The love story, in particular, felt very young, even for YA. And while many of Winnie’s thoughts and feelings read as true to a teenage girl, they were not the sorts of struggles that I personally find as compelling to read about anymore.

All of that said, if you enjoyed the first book, I’m sure you’ll enjoy this one. On the other hand, if the first book didn’t work for you as well, this one probably isn’t going to be turning that opinion fully around, even if it was stronger in some aspects.

Rating 7: While a bit predictable as far as the plot goes, this book will likely appeal to readers who enjoyed this world and these characters, particularly its emphasis on supernatural beings.

Link will go live on The Library Ladies on Nov 10

I think my main disappointment with this book is that most of the elements that I loved about The Luminaries (the prominent role of the forest and the variety of monsters) took a backseat: we briefly venture into the forest twice, and I think there's only two or three big monster moments. The Whisperer - the big threat of the first book - doesn't appear on page once. I miss my baby Whisperer. The atmosphere, the mysteries, and the monsters that I adored faded away, and so did my interest.

It's fine as a sequel, but it definitely suffers from middle book blues. Winnie's friendships and romantic relationship are developed a bit as she returns to her old life, and the plot point of her father makes a little progress, but overall, nothing happens that caught my interest as a reader. This book only takes place a week? two weeks? after the events of The Luminaries, and it's so sparse plot wise that I feel like a handful of relevant scenes could've been added to and expanded on The Luminaries story, and the rest would work better for the final book.

I was also vaguely disappointed that a lot of time on page was spent talking about the Nightmare Masquerade to the point where I expected it to happen in this book, and then it just... didn't.