I spent hours yesterday immersed in the decade between 1940 and 1950, lost in Kate Quinn’s mesmerizing book The Huntress, chasing one sentence to the next, anxious to get to the end and knowing that whatever secrets were revealed would stay with me for a long while. 

Told from the perspectives of Nina, a female Soviet pilot, Ian, a British journalist who tracks down Nazis/former Nazis who committed war crimes, and Jordan, an aspiring photographer living in Boston whose dreams are bigger than the dreams her father has for her.

Nina, Ian, and Jordan each become involved somehow in the hunt for the Huntress, a Nazi woman believed to be guilty of despicable war crimes, and whose whereabouts are unknown.

This book can’t and shouldn’t be separated from its World War II setting. What happened in World War II, what was done to innocent men, women, and children, matters to the characters in the book and it should matter to us outside the book, too. But the questions The Huntress poses, the answers it gives, are also universal. What national and individual crimes do we commit? How do we forget? How do we remember, and what burden is on us to do so? 

The Huntress is excellent historical fiction; an excellent book, period. It’s masterfully written, with suspenseful pacing and delayed revelations, characters whose hearts and hopes and fears grab at you, and writing that strikes beautifully, powerfully. Unforgettably. 

Read this book, and then let's talk about it. 

I received an ARC of this book from Edelweiss+ but all opinions provided are my own. 

There comes a time in a bookworm's life when said bookworm has to talk favorites. Maybe you're at a dinner party (jkjkjk--you don't go to parties). Maybe you're at an obligatory work function. Or maybe someone interrupts you while you're reading on a subway (or folding clothes). They ask, what's your favorite book?, and the panic is rising because you don't have one favorite book, you have a million, and you want that person to read them all and then come talk to you about them, because you have so much to say. 

That's why I made this list called "100 books." Which ones do you agree with? Which ones do you vehemently disagree with? It's all part of the fun. I tend to avoid confrontation but this is a hill (approximately 100 hills) I'm willing to die on. 

​xoxo.