Review by Heather C.

TITLE: Hunt and Pray
AUTHOR: Cindy Sutherland
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
SUMMARY: Reporter Drew Edwards got too close to his story and now finds himself a hunted man. After being kidnapped and then released in Colorado Springs Forest, he has six hours’ headstart on a madman trying to teach his son a lesson.

Chance Collins gets one warning from his bigoted, abusive father: “Kill him or be killed.” Horrified, Chance sees only one real option—run with Drew. When he takes it, there’s no turning back. If Drew and Chance can work together, they might make it out of the mountains alive to the promise of a brighter future.

REVIEW:

Scary and dangerous turned sweet and hopeful.

Hunt and Pray begins with the abduction of Drew Edwards, a reporter who has been investigating the disappearances of several gay men.  He has been kidnapped by the homicidal, homophobic Colonel Collins in an attempt at scaring Chance, his son, ‘straight’.  The objective: Chance will have to hunt and kill Drew.  But as the hour of the Hunt draws near, will Chance be willing to risk the wrath of his insane father and save Drew?

At first, I found this to be pretty scary; just the thought of someone being hunted and killed simply because they were gay is terrifying. The Colonel and his lackey, Ezra, made me so sick to my stomach.  But I never hated Chance, and I don’t believe Drew ever did either.  I think we both felt sorry for him…being abused and controlled by his father for so long.

My favorite part of this story was the sexual tension between Drew and Chance. I think the author nailed that from the beginning with all the eye contact and body language.  Amazing job there. I was so into wanting them to hook up that I didn’t really care that it slowed the pace of the story.  Actually, I never really felt the urgency at all.  I mean, Drew and Chance were running for their lives, but it didn’t really seem like they were in much of a hurry.  Plus, I should have been able to feel Drew’s fear that his life might be ending soon.  Aside from the opening scene, I never really felt that again.

I also had a hard time getting a grasp on Chance as a character.  Yes, he had been abused and controlled all his life by his father, but he was also a Marine.  In the beginning, he was hard and stoic, but as the story progressed, he kind of turned into a wimp.  There were times where Drew was giving him directions when they were on the run, and that just felt inconsistent to me.  Chance was supposedly a highly trained Marine and should have been more efficient without needing any guidance from Drew, who had very little experience surviving outdoors.  I guess an argument could be made that the fact that Chance was beaten down and injured affected his efficiency, but it was still inconsistent and didn’t feel right to me.

I think this story would have been much more effective if it would have been expanded into a novel.  There were parts that I really wanted to ‘see’ but were told and brushed over in order to get to the next scene, like the rescue.  I wanted to read that as it happened; not after the fact. And then there were details in some areas that I thought were entirely too tedious, like the detailing of everything that Drew was doing in the bathroom. That came across as repetitive and not needed.

Overall, I enjoyed reading this. Plus, the ending was sweet and had a nice HEA.

Heather’s Rating:

BUY LINK: Dreamspinner Press  ||  Amazon

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Heather C. is one of the official reviewers on The Blog of Sid Love
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