The Wren Hunt by Mary Watson

Every Christmas, Wren is chased through the woods near her isolated village by her family's enemies—the Judges—and there’s nothing that she can do to stop it. Once her people, the Augurs, controlled a powerful magic. But now that power lies with the Judges, who are set on destroying her kind for good.

In a desperate bid to save her family, Wren takes a dangerous undercover assignment—as an intern to an influential Judge named Cassa Harkness. Cassa has spent her life researching a transformative spell, which could bring the war between the factions to its absolute end. Caught in a web of deceit, Wren must decide whether or not to gamble on the spell and seal the Augurs’ fate.

Why I Picked It Up

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When I'm in Canada every summer, it occasionally storms in a way I miss. Living in Hawai'i, our rain tends to be light and quickly passing—hence our moniker as the Rainbow State. So I miss the blackened, powerful thunderstorms of my childhood in Florida or summers spent working in Western North Carolina.

My reading taste on Black Island tends to be of two varieties: devourable beach reads, or "dark and stormy" fantasies, paranormal, etc,. Something atmospheric and subtly tinged with darkness. Because this is such a consistent aspect of my taste, I even have a menu category on the Books page that bundles related "dark and stormy" reviews.

I got The Wren Hunt from the fabulous Erica Barmash at Bloomsbury (who always points me in the right direction) and it soon became a favorite. I'd definitely classify this release as a quieter one just because it is subtle, but I think not enough people obsess over it. It reminds me almost of a young adult version of Savvy by Ingrid Law, a staple book of my childhood, but obviously much sexier (speaking atmospherically, not just romantically.) I've reread this book multiple times and adore its specific, distinctive flavor each time.

What It’s About

Essentially, the story begins with two warring factions trying to outsmart the others. Wren’s family belongs to the augurs—most broadly, a form of witches. The judges, the opposition, have been dismantling their sites of power.

The augurs need someone (Wren) to go undercover at their archives as a spy, but she’ll be in significant danger by doing so. But as Wren gets more and more tangled in the web of family and history and magic, she starts to doubt what she’s been told about the rivalry and its origins entirely.

The plot itself starts with Wren waiting in the woods, trying to figure out how to avoid being the "wren" in a game the neighborhood boys play on Stephen's Day. That's almost secondary to the judges vs. augurs plot but shows the tipping point of one of them—David—tormenting her in a way that's started to be terrifying rather than moderately playful. Because this time, he cuts and steals a piece of her hair: an overt threat.

And then the plot kicks into this archive exploration.

What I Loved

Setting-wise, I love when the focus is on a village rather than a city. It just immediately orients me in a warm, intimate setting that raises the stakes with its closeness. Betrayals mean more, with isolation as more and more of a risk. Some may find the genre fluidity disorienting, but this type of structure is so up my alley.

The book is very focused on trees and nature in a way that feels almost nymph-like, which is creative. Very much an exercise in fabulism. It’s a supernatural book, but in such a subtle way that it almost feels like the Irish answer to magical realism. Similarly, it’s grounded in daily life, with the magic as an extra layer—mysticism, almost. A good equivalent would be The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater, but even that series is more overt. (The pervasive village feel would absolutely align with fans of The Scorpio Races—so it's a great pick for Stiefvater fans like moi!)

The gorgeous, smart aspect of this book is that the magic is based on patterns and repetition. Watson does a much more elegant job of explaining it than I can, but basically, characters will catch themselves in moments of lull or hypnosis because they’ve created all these small, detailed, almost musical patterns and that meditative cycle has an effect.

It’s unique, almost Pavlovian, and difficult to explain outside the narrative, which is why I’m so impressed by Watson’s ability to make it click for the reader. It makes plot structures and metaphors we experience as the reader even more alluring in an almost meta way. It’s an engrossing magic system, but never feels like it’s flailing.

What I love about this book is that a lot of the danger of it—the judges' bodyguards called the gardeners because they prune people, David narrowing in on Wren in a way that feels almost stalker-like, the secret mission of Wren in the archives—is gradual and off-page i.e. if you're in a position to actually seethe threat unfold, it's already too late.

For that reason, the tension is almost equivalent to a mob storyline. Watson doesn't have to rely on flashy displays of violence or showdown to make it clear that there are intense stakes for failure. That may not work for everyone, but I thought the tension was absolutely delicious, and absolutely riveting enough for me to tear through the book.

The enemies-to-lovers romance is surprisingly sexy, built on a Stoic tension. Her love interest, Tarc, is one of the boss’s bodyguards, so she knows getting close would be dangerous. (Oooh.)

The ending did confuse me some, so I wished for more there, but that almost fits the subgenre of aligned reads like The Graces by Laure Eve or Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by April Genevieve Tucholke or The Accident Season by Moïra Fowley-Doyle: like it's more about the vibe and a deeply-held warning versus a neater fairytale. That's where the folklore emphasis feels more visible, and I've never minded that sense of what I might call evocative incompleteness. A few questions are never fully addressed, but I have the companion The Wickerlight to read at some point. The overall experience is so captivating that I don’t care.

Overall Thoughts

This atmospheric, modern Irish fantasy is supremely underrated. Its magic system is clear, clever, and immersive, which is such a testament to skill—and its earthy folklore feels timeless and otherworldly in the best ways. The tension and timelessness balance out the cottage feel nicely, so The Wren Hunt satisfies cravings for both a quiet and riveting read.

It would appeal to fans of some very specific tropes popular nowadays: sentient forest, supernatural-or-metaphorical (my favorite, and so difficult to do well), etc,. I absolutely have to be in the mood for fantasy, but tend to veer more towards groundedness and folklore than castles and dragons. It was perfect for a moody day on the daybed watching a storm roll over the lake.

For fans of:

Savvy by Ingrid Law; Bittersweet in the Hollow by Kate Pearsall; The Graces by Laure Eve; The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater; The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater; The Accident Season by Moïra Fowley-Doyle; Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers; The Nature of Witches by Rachel Griffin; The Wicker King by K. Ancrum; The Bad Ones by Melissa Albert; House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland; Dark and Shallow Lies by Ginny Myers Sain; Gilded by Marissa Meyer; Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by April Genevieve Tucholke; etc,.