The Revenant and the Cult, Book One by Herman P. Hunter

This is my third year in a row of reading Hunter’s work and I’m enjoying the sport of reading indie authors who strive to just tell good stories they want to tell. Hunter dips back into his shorter story from “The Revenant and the Tomb” which I enjoyed quite a bit (My Video Review Here). We join again Halsedric, Herodiani, and Tulvgir as the main crew who have moved past their fight on the Horn of Torgiv but whose effects seem to be popping up again. This time they are joined by a much more pleasant woodsman guide of Roe who seems to have a similar belief in the Allfather after an encounter with a kind man that feels familiar to Jean Valjean from Les Mis. A further unfolding of Halsedric’s backstory with being blessed with long life and wound repair from the Allfather occurs which offers more insight in the background I liked from the first book. The elf-like Herodiani is still mysterious with a bit more of her background fleshed out but her stealthy fighting skills are on more display here. Tulvgir is also nice to see back and offers up his tank support.

This book is a good start to a fuller story and is really Act 1 of the mystery of some cult who seems to be tied with the big bad from the first book. There is a bit less of the full story here and more of the building up of setting and characters with a few good action scenes. Hunter shows off those action scenes well. With his first book, it was a good bit of setup before the waves of fighting that were a lot of fun to read occurred. Here, Hunter is taking his time to set things up. However, the main plot is a bit lighter than what I’d like to see that would move a new reader into the next book. However, I think there is enough of the character build-up and the surprise of liking the guide Roe to wet your whistle to check out the next in the series.

I appreciated Hunter’s opening line about wanting to listen to his readers and return to the world of Revenant since it sounds like many people enjoyed it. I believe you could start with this book and use the shorter previous one as a prequel or the other way around and it would both work and inform whether to continue the series which I hope to do with the next one.