Review: Hunter's Need by Shiloh Walker

I've never read Shiloh Walker before, but the premise of her Hunter's series intrigued me. Hunter's Need is part of an extensive series, but it stands alone just fine. In fact, it's probably one of the best paranormal romantic suspense books I've read in a long time.

I'm usually a little leery about starting a book that's part of an established series. As a series progresses, it always becomes really difficult to explain some of the important back story necessary for the plot without doing it in info dumps. Or doing the opposite and leaving out important information so that fans who have followed the series don't get annoyed with all of the rehashing of events. As a first time reader of Shiloh Walker, I can say she handled that dilemma with expertise.


We've all had our vampire, werewolf, shifter, psychic fix. There are plenty of those novels out there. What makes this one unique is that it doesn't focus directly on how "other" the main characters are. It's part of the plot, yes, but at heart, Hunter's Need is a solid romantic suspense that just happens to be about people with paranormal abilities. Like Kay Hooper's Bishop series only furry.

The characters are excellent. They pop off the pages fully formed. There's some serious bad history between Ana, our "weak" psychic and Duke the shape-shifter. There's also a hotter than Hades physical attraction that they deny but is obvious to most of their otherworldly acquaintances.

What I liked (and sometimes hated) about Ana was that she wasn't your usual Urban Fantasy/Paranormal kick-ass heroine. She had some serious self esteem problems, compounded by lingering guilt about the choices she was forced to make and the people hurt as a result of them. She's very low key. Very passive. Which just isn't something you see a lot of in the genre.

Duke, though, is 100% in line with the alpha, powerful, tough fighter you'd expect. He is possessive, gruff, sexually aggressive. But underscoring all of that is a bone-deep sense of justice. So it's not really all that surprising that he's able to find a way to forgive Ana's betrayal.

I really enjoyed the twists and turns of this book. While I did figure out 'whodunnit' well before the ending, it was still suspenseful. And Walker has a nice, unique narrative style that really worked for me.  I loved every page.

My Grade: A