Review: Quick read - Fun ride
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 8, 2012
What happens when a horror fiction novelist unites with an erotica writer?You get a literary work that gives a one-finger salute to formula, composition, and expectation. In other words, you get Hunting Season.Penned by weather-obsessed Blake Crouch, and sex-first writer Selena Kitt, Hunting Season takes place in the middle of winter in Michigan. The story opens with Ariana Plano, a local girl who once had the world at her fingertips. She was among the most respected and most popular in her high school, and she had fallen for her first love, Ray Koski. Ray was the point guard on the basketball team. He was dark and handsome, if not tall.  They shared love at first sight.Then Bud came along. Bud was twice their age, and his riches seduced Ariana's daddy, even before his tough, manly mannerisms seduced her. Though Ray was the love of her life, Bud soon became the man of her life, and the two were sent spiraling on different paths; opposite sides to the same coin.Years later, the image of the perfect future has faded for both. Bud wasn't the pristine gentleman Ariana was led to believe. The scars and bruises were proof.  Ray, never gaining the courage to live, or to challenge Bud for the woman he loved, has remained trapped in the lonely Michigan town, carving meat for the locals and the out-of-towners who happened to win the Bear Lottery.Each of them is miserable, but unwilling to open up. Life is as it has always been; miserable, solitary, and lonely.One night, a chance set of circumstances forces Ray and Ariana to wake up, and to realize, exactly what they've been afraid to face for over a decade.The eBook version of A Hunting Story includes a fun interview between Crouch and Kitt. Author bios and a listing of their works are also included.