Hmm. A set-up. [Burn the Dark by S.A. Hunt]

Robin is a YouTube celebrity gone-viral with her intensely-realistic witch hunter series. But even her millions of followers don't know the truth: her series isn’t fiction. Her ultimate goal is to seek revenge against the coven of witches who wronged her mother long ago. Returning home to the rural town of Blackfield, Robin meets friends new and old on her quest for justice. But then, a mysterious threat known as the Red Lord interferes with her plans….

First published July 2015, S.A. Hunt's Burn the Dark was newly released under Tor Publishing about two weeks ago, January 14th, 2020. As I'd mentioned before in my 10% read recap, what first stood out to me, negatively, was discount Lafayette and all he stood for. What most surprised me as I read on was how much I enjoyed the character's surrounding another story locus, Wayne. Generally we alternate between the protagonist, Robin, and her circle, the witches and their circle, and Wayne and his circle. We have to deal with the other two for the story to progress, but with Wayne it feels most organic. A young transplanted black youth from Chicago (I'm not touching on that here), Wayne and a shifting group of new friends (where did Juan go) have quizzical encounters with the supernatural that for me were the best part of the story.

But what is the story anyway? A set-up. I didn't like the book that much. The story felt forced, the voicing fake, and my belief was barely suspended, but what irked me the most was how open-ended the book was left. Burn the Dark is the first in a series, the Malus Domestica series, but even if you're setting up a story, tie up loose ends. Have some degree of closure while leaving many threads connecting to a next book. I read 300 plus pages and all it did was introduce me to some characters, set up piles of exposition, and see no conflict. What payoff do I get here?

So generally if I book doesn't horrendously disappoint and if the story holds any shred of interest for me I'll give it a 3 stars. I just don't know that I would recommend this book to anyone outside of the sake of completion, because that's where the interest comes from for me. The witches don't sounds frightening, the whole set-up of the supernatural sounds really weak. In fact I think someone would get annoyed if I recommended them this book. They'd come at me about the way it ended. The book's alright, but because I'm annoyed at the open ending I'm giving it 2 stars. I would like to see how it finishes, for my completionist's heart but also because I feel like the answers to the questions raised in the first book will prove unsatisfactory and I want the satisfaction and vindication of being right.