Melting Pages
Book Reviews and Recommendations
5 Books With…Monster Hunters
Hi everyone! You may (or may not) notice that I slightly changed the name of this series here on my blog. Previously, I was calling it 5 GREAT books with…but since some of the books on these lists I haven’t actually read for myself, calling them great is a little misleading. I want to reiterate that the purpose of this series is to help people find books with specific tropes or ideas that they want to read more of. So far, I’ve done 5 Books With Dragons, and 5 Books With Disability Rep.
Today, in honor of Halloween and all things spooky and scary, I’m doing 5 books with MONSTER HUNTERS. We all love watching a badass main character go head to head with some deadly monsters, and to be honest, it’s something that I want to read more of myself! So after some research, here are 5 books that have monster hunters as part of the plot, some I’ve read, some I haven’t!
The Last Wish (The Witcher) by Andrzej Sapkowski
This wouldn’t have been a list about monster hunters without one of the most famous monster hunter in fantasy – Geralt of Rivia. Witchers are trained to track and kill monsters that threaten innocent people, which sets them apart from everyone else. Even though witchers keep the general populace safe, they exist outside society and are shunned for being different. This series explores the idea of a monster – sometimes what looks monstrous isn’t evil, and sometimes what looks beautiful isn’t good. The series starts with two short story collections that introduce you to Geralt and the world he lives in, and are all fairy tale retellings. The Witcher has also been turned into a video game (that I love dearly) and a TV show on Netflix (which I also love). So you can’t go wrong with this option!
Related: The Last Wish Review
Trail of Lightning (The Sixth World) by Rebecca Roanhorse
Set in a post-apocalyptic world and filled with Navajo culture and mythology, Trail of Lightning is about Maggie, a supernaturally gifted monster hunter. Maggie gets enlisted to help a small town find a missing girl and ends up uncovering information about a monster. She ends up teaming up with a medicine man named Kai and they unravel clues from ancient legends and battle monsters to discover the truth of the disappearance and the monster. This is one that I haven’t read yet myself, but I’ve heard fantastic things from people all across the book community, and it’s one that I hope to read soon!
Related: Trail of Lightning Review from Kal @ Reader Voracious
Soulkeeper (The Keepers) by David Dalglish
Soulkeeper follows Devin, who travels through villages and acts as a preacher and healer for those who are too remote to get to a major city or village. It’s on a trip to one of these small remote villages that a strange sickness has started to kill the villagers, and so Devin goes to a cave that he was told contained the cure to the sickness. By the time he returns, ancient magic has returned to the world and he is suddenly thrust into a new role as a monster slayer to protect the human race. Like how The Witcher series explores what makes a monster, Soulkeeper explores that concept as well with Devin befriending people from these newly awakened races. I’ve been slowly reading this one, and I’m currently around 20% into this one, and it’s definitely unique and interesting.
Related: Soulkeeper Review from Petrik @ Novel Notions
Kings of the Wyld (The Band) by Nicholas Eames
Kings of the Wyld is slightly different than the other books on this list, because instead of it following active monster hunters, the group in this book is actually retired! Clay and his band were once the best and most feared mercenaries in the country, traveling around and slaying monsters for sport. Now, one of his old band mates has shown up on Clay’s doorstep asking for help to once again brave the monster infested Heartwyld to save his daughter from a besieged city. This was such a fun ride and was one of my favorite books of 2018. This book is hilarious, and has tons of Easter eggs relating to music and video games, and has become a very popular book.
Related: Kings of the Wyld Review
Discount Armageddon (InCryptid) by Seanan McGuire
Most people are familiar with Seanan McGuire because of her Wayward Children series, but she’s a very prolific writer and has actually written a series all about cryptozoologists, which is a fancy word for someone who hunts for monsters (think IRL bigfoot hunters). This series is an urban fantasy, paranormal/supernatural series with some romance and mystery, and honestly sounds like there’s a lot going on. Verity Price has trained since birth to be a cryptozoologist just like the rest of her family, working to protect humans from monsters, and monsters from humans. Verity would much rather be a professional dancer than hunt monsters, but when monsters start to disappear, getting out of the family business isn’t as easy as she thought it would be. This is a long series that I haven’t yet tackled, but it seems to be an underrated urban fantasy from a powerhouse author!
Related: Discount Armageddon Review from Holly @ The Grimdragon
Melting Pages 
oooohh cool selection!!
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Thank you!
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I’m hoping to read Soulkeeper soon! It’s massive!
Thanks for sharing my review! Rad selection you have here!
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Thank you, and no problem!
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Ooh I love a good monster hunter! Trail of Lightning is on my TBR for this month and I’m very excited to read it 😀 Thanks for these recommendations!
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You’re welcome! I don’t think I realized that Trail of Lightning was about a monster hunter until I was making this list!
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Can I ask a question here?
What’s special about a book about a monster hunter? What’s the definition of monster? I’ve read so much fantasy that has what I would call “monsters” and involves the protagonists or heroes, or whatever you call them, finding a way to defeat the monster, or monsters, that I’m not quite sure what makes something a monster hunter book! What’s unique or defining about one?
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Thats the thing, a few of these books DO discuss what actually makes someone or something a monster. For this post, each of the books uses the term monster and has a person who takes it upon themselves to hunt them down in order to protect humanity. Often times the monsters are from myths and legends, like for example The Witcher has ‘monsters’ such as succubus, griffins, kikimoras, and leshen, among many many others. I use quotation makes because the series in general looks at are monsters truly the monstrous ones, or is it humans?
The way I chose this particular list is based off either my experiences of the books, or the synopses and other reviews that mention the monsters and those that kill them. However, one book series on this list (InCryptid) is different from that formula because they’re monster hunters in the sense that they track them down and study them, sort of like people in real life wanting to track down and study monsters such as Bigfoot, the chupacabra, and the loch ness monster.
So I guess really your definition of monster and monster hunter could be different than mine.
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Great list! Kings of the Wyld is one of my favourite books! It was such a fun book, but also really heart warming too, I felt. I loved all the friendships!
And I read The Last Wish recently as well, and really enjoyed it. I need to read more of the Witcher books soon!
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Same! I’m really looking forward to whenever the third book is published after Kings of the Wyld and Bloody Rose, and I’m on to the first of the full novels for The Witcher! I want to read it before the next season of the TV show comes out!
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I really need to get around to reading The Witcher! It’s been on my TBR forever and I’ve started The Last Wish, but I haven’t gotten far. The games are one of my favourite video game series and I enjoyed the Netflix show, so I need to get around to reading it. Great blog, these other books sound really good as well! – Amber
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Thank you! The novels are written a little differently than the short story collections so switching gears has to that has thrown me for a loop with The Witcher. I would really like to read at least the first full book before the next season airs!
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