Kirillian Harmony Knox was one of the most successful bounty hunters in the galaxy - until a brain-eater named Prime became her only failure and escaped, landing her in jail. Now free, she'll stop at nothing to catch him and stop his murderous rampage.
Unfortunately for Harmony, fellow hunter Bart Tanner has the only available transport. Arrogant and ruthless, Tanner is known for killing most of his bounties. Harmony can't stand him - yet she can't deny the deep sexual desire sparking between them.
Once enslaved as a cage fighter by a cruel Kirillian, Tanner harbors a deep hatred for the alien race - though he's drawn to Harmony's luscious sensuality, and they soon indulge in erotic encounters.
When Prime puts out a hit on Harmony, things intensify, and Tanner realizes their lust has turned into something deeper - but if he and Harmony aren't careful, more than just their lives will be at stake....
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"The Hunters (third in Flanagan's Brotherband Chronicles, essentially a spinoff of his previous Ranger's Apprentice books following a clever half-Araluen (aka English) boy named Hal as he tries to make a place for himself in the rough Skandian (aka Norse) society of Flanagan's Medieval Europe-esque world) picks up directly after The Invaders. Hal and the Herons (incidentally, that would be a great band name) have saved the town of Limmat and are now ready to continue their pursuit of their pirate nemesis Zavac to recover the sacred Andomal (a big amber sphere), which leads them inland down a river through greedy and hostile port towns to the pirate lair of Raguza. As with the previous two books, Flanagan seems to have hit his stride stylistically, and I easily tore through the Hunters at 100 pages per hour. The story was amusing and its focus on river trade and piracy was a good shift for the series as it forced the Herons into a novel scenario (and one you don't see all that often in fiction).
On the other hand, although I thought it was a great read, I can't say I enjoyed the Hunters as much as the Invaders or the Outcasts. The main reason is simple: Hal. Whereas in the first two books, Hal was the major active factor pushing the band forward with his indomitable will and introducing new ideas on the fly to help them succeed, in the Hunters he is almost passive, his ingenuity is hardly called upon (the only "new" thing the Herons try out are Edvin's woolen hats), and in the action scenes the majority of the fighting falls to Thorn, Stig (who, otherwise, has almost nothing to do in this book), and Lydia.
Speaking of Lydia (easily the most dynamic character in book 3, with Thorn coming second), her character shifts significantly from book 2 to book 3. In book 2 she was a tentative romantic interest for both Stig and Hal and was equal parts damsel in distress and amazon warrior. In book 3, the romantic tension vanishes into thin air (indeed, Hal seems strangely and utterly disinterested for most of the book) and Flanagan makes a concerted effort to make her "one of the guys" with her laser-like focus on killing Zavac for his murder of her grandfather. I wouldn't mind the shift so much if it didn't feel like Flanagan had decided to put off the romantic tension so he could bring it out in a later book.
While I do look forward to Hal's hunt for the Great Sea Snake (unlikely, since Flanagan seems to have made a conscious decision to ditch all the fantasy elements from his universe) or the Heron's discovery of Flanagan's version of North America (frankly, Hal doing the whole Leif Ericsson thing sounds like a great idea for a second trilogy, but that's just me spit-balling), I had this feeling reading book 3 that whereas in books 1 and 2 Flanagan knew how and where he wanted things to go, in book 3 he decided to cut his anchor chain and drifted on a couple subplots to preserve some material for later books that he hadn't initially planned. It's Flanagan's story, he can do what he likes, but I really liked the pacing and character development of the first two books and the more open-ended feel of book 3 made several of the characters come off rather flat.
Finally, although I won't state specifics, the story seems front-loaded dramatically. You'd think that the clash with Zavac at the end would be the emotional height of the story, but the final battle plays out (mostly) like a foregone conclusion and the greatest tension in the story comes much earlier while the Herons are trying to make their way through corrupt port towns and dangerous rapids.
All that said, in spite of putting several characters into emotional cryo-stasis, the Hunters does an effective (and more importantly, entertaining) job of bringing the first Brotherband trilogy to a close and I, for one, will be happy to check out Flanagan's next offering ASAP."
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Daniel (4 out of 5 stars)