Huntress (A Grace Murphy Novel) [Kindle Edition]

Nicole Hamlett (Author)

Book Description

"Fate is an ugly bitch who will screw with your life every single chance she gets."

Grace Murphy, a newly single mother finds this out as she's trying to figure out how to lead a perfectly normal life. The big question becomes, what do you do when you find out that your mother is Diana, the Goddess of the Hunt and she expects you to take up the family business?

You can try hiding, but escaping when you have an ex-husband to deal with, a kid to raise and an unknown being who's trying to kill you is tricky at best.

Now the woman who couldn't put a bookshelf together without getting sweaty and perplexed must learn how to roar...without getting herself and everyone she loves killed.

Saving the world? Not a problem.

Getting home in time for chocolate chip pancakes might be a whole other matter, though...

Product Details

• File Size: 392 KB
• Print Length: 178 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1467956902
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B00528HXSM
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #90,451 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 27 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Can't wait to read the next in the series! June 6, 2011

By King Dingbat

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Grace is a newly-single mother who wishes for a normal life and is taught a lesson on how normal of a life she was actually leading. Now that she's not-so-normal, she is forced to get her life in order and embrace the fact that the world is not what it seems.

Between being a good mom to her son Dylan, fighting vicious monsters and trying to get her Greek God parents to kiss and make up, this is a nonstop action novel of mythical proportions. Oh, and she still finds time to put her ex-husbands new girlfriend in her place when she tries to push Grace out of the picture and become Dylan's only mother.

I'm not normally a fan of first person perspective, but Nicole pulls it off quite well, and I enjoyed this book. I identified with Grace quite a bit, and it was nice to read a fantasy book that seems like it could be a part of my own reality.

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars If Stephanie Plum and Harry Dresden had a love child.... May 26, 2011

By A. Thabet

Format:Kindle Edition

...it would be Grace Murphy, the newly divorced single mom, who is a happy mixture of the two (minus a few exploding vehicles).

Feeling as though love has "kicked my ass and stolen my wallet", she takes an impromptu camping trip, and meets a mysterious stranger who turns out to be the goddess Diana (also known as "mom"). Soon she learns that, not only can she still bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan, she can also kick your ass while she's doing it!

Huntress is a amusing and well-written of one woman's metamorphosis from everyday suburban soccer mom to butt-kicking warrior demigoddess.

I sincerely hope this is the first of a series, because I can't wait to see what happens next!

74 of 96 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Wow. I did not like that. January 8, 2012

By Lincoln Rodman

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I read "Huntress" on the recommendation of a friend. I spent the $2.99 to download "Huntress" by Nicole Hamlett and upon completing the book, complained to my friend that her tastes in literature had taken a nosedive. When I stated to her that "Huntress" by Nicole Hamlett was not a terribly good read, my friend laughed at me on the phone for about five minutes and then said I was supposed to read "Huntress" by Malindo Lo, which she swears is a very good book.

I did not read "Huntress" by Malinda Lo, unfortunately. I read (and bought) "Huntress" by Nicole Hamlett, and that is the book I am left to review.

I will say at the outset that I suffer from a condition where if I pay for a book or a movie, I feel compelled to finish it, no matter how bad it is. That is why I didn't walk out of "Jack and Jill" with Adam Sandler. That is why I finished "Transformers 2." And it is why I read to the end of "Huntress: A Grace Murphy Novel."

Had I received the book for free, I could have followed my instincts and discarded it a few pages in. But instead, I felt like I had to somehow squeeze $2.99 in value from the book. I was unable to do so.

The book is off-putting from the start. The protagonist narrates in a highly annoying and grating first-person voice. While she is a recent divorcee in her mid-to-late thirties, her manner of expressing herself comes across as a cheap imitation of the teenage heroine from "Easy A." Except with less wisdom and maturity, despite what should be more than twice the life experience. It really reads like a 14 year old doing an impersonation of a grown woman.

Despite the novel opening in mid-fight against a manticore, I was bored off the top. And it went downhill from there. In addition to the annoying narration, it seemed like the author was being paid by the cliche.

After the manticore fight, the whole first chapter is little more than a point-form laundry list of bad events that have happened to the protagonist Grace Murphy, in an attempt to elicit sympathy. The events aren't relived or vividly described. They're just listed right off the top, like an athlete who lists injuries to make excuses for his poor performance and then says, "No excuses, just saying." For a few pages, we are informed by Grace Murphy herself that Grace Murphy was adopted, beaten, getting divorced, and so on. No anecdotes. Point form complaints. No excuses. Just saying.

By page ten I expected Grace Murphy to state (before the story actually begins) that she was born with a clubbed foot, and a harelip, survived Auschwitz, and is lactose intolerant. Just saying.

And it goes on and on. After being beaten to a pulp by cliches in the early going, I actually thought to myself, "at least the protagonist isn't a struggling novelist." Literally two paragraphs later, BLAMMO. Grace Murphy starts talking about her agent and her deadlines. In a book where the protagonist could have been given any job in the world without compromising the storyline, the author couldn't even muster the imagination to give the main character a profession other than her own.

I won't divulge anything past the first 5% of the book or so in order not to spoil any of the plot. Which is a bit of a waste, because that is about the point in the book where I started making notes to bring up with my friend who I thought had recommended this title. I will just say: "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" transcribed unreliably from memory by a teenager, with Percy Jackson screeching in your ear the whole time. And Percy is a middle-aged woman.

It's like the author took Percy Jackson, which is already largely geared toward kids and teens, then dumbed down the writing style to appeal to an even younger age group, but then made the main character a thirtysomething divorcee complaining about her ex-husband and other adult issues...so I guess it is geared toward adults despite the tweenish writing style?

Truly, Grace Murphy is one of the least likable protagonists I've come across in quite some time. She vents internally about the state of her life but really seems to have little or nothing to offer the people in it. The dialogue is also sometimes jarringly unnatural, particularly Grace's.

One review in here states that the action and story pick up after Chapter 5 or so. Well, technically that is true. The later portion of the book is better than the first five chapters, but not by any great margin. It is kind of like saying that Fran Drescher has a nicer voice than Gilbert Gottfried.

The end result is that a fairly short book (billed at 200 pages) feels quite a bit longer, and in order to finish it, I had to do it a couple pages at a time. And with growing annoyance both at the book and at myself for refusing to just quit.

There seem to be a number of positive reviews for this book. I am truly baffled by this.

This particular work would surely stand out as above average in a high school English class, maybe even first year college, but this is a work of fiction being sold as a professional product. For actual money. I feel compelled to criticize it by that standard.

This author may produce a good novel at some point, but given that this book seems to be a pretty recent effort, I would say that any passable novels are at least a few years down the road.

More About the Author

The very first book that I'd ever owned was Nancy Drew and the Mystery of the Old Clock. I devoured it faster than humanly possible and books became my new addiction. I was 7.

Books have gotten me through the good times and the bad so it made sense when I started my novel for the bajillionth time that this time I was going to publish it. I went the easy route and self published. So far so good.

I'm currently writing my third book Volcanoes, raising my kid and surfing the tricky world of Community Management. I live in Colorado Springs with my family. When I'm not writing, I can be found out and about pretending to be a real live girl. :)

Visit my Facebook page here - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nicole-Hamlett/270230679667759