The Hunter’s Daughter
Nicola Solvinic
Genre: Paranormal Suspense
Publisher: Berkley
Release Date: May 14, 202
Hardcover: 384 pages
ISBN-10: 0593639723
ISBN-13: 978-0593639726
Cover Artist: Adam Auerbach
Tagline: Her father’s sins won’t be her own.
Book Description:
A hypnotic, sinister debut mystery about a seemingly good cop who is secretly the daughter of a notorious serial killer.
Anna Koray escaped her father’s darkness long ago. When she was a girl, her childhood memories were sealed away from her conscious mind by a controversial hypnosis treatment. She’s now a decorated sheriff’s lieutenant serving a rural county, conducting an ordinary life far from her father’s shadow.
When Anna kills a man in the line of duty, her suppressed memories return. She dreams of her beloved father, his hands red with blood, surrounded by flower-decked corpses he had sacrificed to the god of the forest.
To Anna’s horror, a serial killer emerges who is copying her father – and who knows who she really is. Is her father still alive, or is this the work of another? Will the killer expose her, destroying everything she has built for herself? Does she want him to?
But as she haunts the forest, using her father’s tricks to the hunt the killer, will she find what she needs most…or lose herself in the gathering darkness?
You can get the book directly from Penguin, here.
If Amazon is more your thing, you can find it here.
Excerpt:
“I didn’t mean for you to find out like this, Elena.”
A soft voice echoed from the other side of the house. I turned my gaze to a pile of
rotted fallen beams. My dad sat there quietly in the dark, perched as he would in a tree
stand in the forest. His hat was low over his head, and his rifle was slung over his
shoulder.
“I didn’t mean for you to find out at all.”
I whimpered.
He sighed.
“Are you a monster?” I demanded. The word didn’t seem adequate. “Monster”
sounded like a word for fairy tales. Not my beloved dad.
He looked at the bodies arranged around the room. “Maybe.”
He stretched his legs and slid down the pile. I backed up against the rusted stove.
Liquid sloshed, and something cold and wet splashed down my side. I recognized the
smell immediately: curdled blood. A metal bucket turned over and crashed on the floor,
spilling the rest of the blood over my sneakers.
I was frozen. I saw the outline of the door, and I should’ve run. But I was rooted in
place, as motionless and helpless as any of these women.
My dad loomed over me. His face was strange, his eyes too dark and still. This man
who stood over me was not my dad. He was some changeling who had come to take him,
leaving an evil shell in his place. A monster.
“What have you done with my dad?” I croaked.
He reached out to touch my cheek. I flinched.
“Your dad is gone.” His voice was a low hiss, like rain in a gutter.
And I knew then what I saw. It was my dad’s Forest God, the one he called Veles,
dark and terrible and devouring everything under this roof. He wanted me. I didn’t know
if he meant to consume me like those other women or if the Forest God was wanting to
do to me as he was doing to my dad, wearing my skin like his own . . .
The door crashed open. The Forest God spun, reaching for his rifle, but he was
tackled by a snarling dog. Percival.
An armed shadow stood in the doorway. Agent Parkes. “Freeze,” he ordered.
The Forest God had no intention of obeying anyone’s orders. He wrestled with the
dog, and the rifle went off. A new hole was blown in the roof, and I was partially blinded
by muzzle flash and deafened by a gunshot in a closed space.
“Drop it!” Parkes commanded. His voice was faint and tinny over the ringing in my
ears.
The Forest God scrambled away from the dog, kicking Percival in the chest. He
sighted his rifle on the dog.
I screamed.
The Forest God hesitated for an instant—only an instant.
It was enough.
More gunfire, muzzle flashes. The Forest God tumbled across the floor. Parkes
advanced on him, shouting, his shoes slipping in the blood. Percival was growling,
clamping my dad’s right hand in his jaws. The rifle spun out on the floor, the barrel
skidding up against my sneakers. It was hot, and it singed the rubber of my shoe.
“Put it down!” Parkes yelled. The man who had once been my father had gotten his
hunting knife loose from his belt and was slashing at Percival. He’d pulled himself up
into a half crouch, dripping on the floor, snarling like a cornered animal.
“Put it down now!”
I knew Parkes was going to kill my dad.
Trembling, I reached down for the gun at my feet.
About the Author:
Nicola Solvinic has a master’s degree in criminology and has worked in and
around criminal justice for more than a decade. She lives in the Midwest with her
husband and cats, where she is surrounded by a secret garden full of beehives.
If you’re interested in following her, you can find her at these sites:
https://www.nicolasolvinic.com/
https://twitter.com/NSolvinic
https://www.facebook.com/NSolvinic
https://www.instagram.com/nicolasolvinic
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/2287094/nicola-solvinic/
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