Genevieve "Evie" Scelan has a power, she uses her olfactory senses the same way that other's use their second sight, hence her nickname "The Hound". This "second scent" gives her so much power and influence that she has to work two jobs to pay the rent. The first is as a bicycle messenger, and second as a finder of lost objects.
About six weeks previous to this novel, in Spiral Hunt (Evie Scelan), Evie had, with help, destroyed the major power base of Boston's magical underground, here called the "undercurrent", and Evie's still trying to adjust to the fact that she is now a legend in her own time. She also has to adjust to the fact that she now has "juice", and that the people in the undercurrent seem to have two attitudes about her. On one hand they either respect, or fear, or both, her and who she's become, while on the other hand there seems to be a growing faction that wants to challenge her for her power and new-found, and unwanted place in the undercurrent. Nice idea, but it's mentioned, then glossed over, then forgotten as Ronald dumps it for something else. It seems that Evie's friend Nate is having problems; he's having restless nights, and seems to be on the verge on changing into something at nighttime. One guess as into what. What THAT is will come as no surprise to anybody who has ever read a horror or supernatural novel before. These nightmare nightimes of Nate's seem to have something to do with a recent Boston immigrant, the greasy, oily, and shady Karl Janssen. Janssen it seems wants to be Evie's go-between, (Go-between what you might ask? Dunno, Ronald never bothers to tell us) and (wotta coincidence) he turns out to be Nate's Dad, and he is involved in transferring a curse to Nate. I think. The whole thing really doesn't make any real sense, if Nate is already suffering from the curse, how did his father THEN transfer it to him? And where and how did this curse originate? Dunno, see above.
At the same time Evie is hired by the rich, and mysterious, Abigail Huston to find out what her grandmother has stolen, because among the artifacts that she has inherited, one is giving her nightmares. The investigation will then cause Evie to be ridden by the ghost of Skelling, a man who was once involved in the transportation of Abigail's magical artifact. Meanwhile, somebody has activated the Gabriel Hounds and has them under their control for short controlled hunts.
While both storylines seem to be separate entities, by the end of the novel they will both be lamely related requiring one conclusion. While Abigail's storyline is the most interesting, in the end, the whole novel seems to move with the speed of molasses in January. A lot of plot ideas are introduced into this novel, but little is really done with any of them. NONE of the novel's characters are either interesting, or fleshed out. Evie shows zero character development since her last novel, she doesn't grow an inch, she just kinda wanders about the landscape. She doesn't even show the type of deep hidden resourcefulness that she did in the first novel. The rest of the characters of "Wild Hunt" are so shallow, they aren't even mud puddle deep. Nate is your average tall, dark and handsome hunk who is also a whiny, self-pityingly, anguished putz while his sister, who was integral to the last novel's plot, has only a token contribution to the novel's plotline. As for the rest of the characters, they are just pretty much just furniture. Ronald feels the need to trot out all of the previous novel's supporting characters for no good reason at all, as nothing is done with them. Another good example is her close friend Rena Santesteban, she barely graces the novel's pages, Rena only seems to make appearances to constantly talk about the major case that she is on, but can't talk about (!), and then exit the stage, or, she shows up just to harass Evie.
Abigail's storyline is interesting, but not enough is done with it, although if separated from the rest, it would have made a good solid hundred page novella. Nate's storyline is just crap. He doesn't seem to be the same Nate from the first novel, and Ronald chooses to just use him, and his developing were-ism as plot filler. His continued whining, and belligerence just ground me down from being barely interested to complete indifferent to his fate.
I gave the first novel in this series a five star rating, but this novel was a complete disappointment. "Wild Hunt" as a whole reads like a draft that Ronald needed to tighten up before its final submission. Incompetent character development; the constant referral, without explanation, of the previous novel's occurrences; and a rambling, slow moving, and pedestrian storyline drop this novel down to a two star rating. As does Ronald's inability, or unwillingness, to actually END the novel. I'm tired of open-ended novels, is it too much to ask for to get a complete story with a real ending anymore? This novel reads more like an average episode of a tv show, than a complete novel. Yes, the ending actually sets up the third (?) novel in the series. Yet, I may not bother with that one after this.
