This was such a creepy book! I loved the premise of it and felt so frustrated for the young women expected to participate in this hunt. And I use the word "participate" in a very loose sense since they don't actually have a choice!

A fabulous, fast paced dystopian with strong undertones of The Hunger Games and Gather The Daughters! Perfect for a binge read.

I could not finish enough of this book to be able to leave a comprehensive review, but I hope it finds its audience and I am grateful to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read an advance copy.

I struggled a lot with this book. On one hand, I loved some of the characters and I found the premise of the book to be different and striking. On the other hand, I kept taking big breaks in my reading off it, where I would drop the book for several weeks and then finally drag myself back. For such a tense book, something about it just didn't capture my attention.

I requested a copy of this because the premise sounded disturbing, perfect for spooky season.

The bride hunt happens every five years on Elk Mountain. All the girls on the list will wake up on the mountain and be hunted by men looking for wives.
The three remaining Marlow sisters are on the list. Their ages range from 14 to 20. None of them want to participate, but it is mandatory.
You cannot refuse the man that chooses you. It brings disgrace upon your family, if you survive.

I liked this, but didn't love it. It's pretty unique. Also disturbing. I liked the way it ended.

The Bride Hunt of Elk Mountain is compellingly written, but fails to completely stick the landing. Despite the majority of the book being introspective and thoughtful, delicately examining different aspects of the story, characters, and setting, the climax dissolved into quick and easy cliche; the Big Fix came together too quickly and perfectly, which undercut all the nuance that came before it. It’s not that I wanted anything less than a happy ending, but I didn’t want a magic wand happy ending, complete with a romance arc that lacked chemistry and seemed to exist just to neatly wrap up some loose threads.

Also, although Reese chose to tell a story about sexist fundamentalism though characters who don’t usually get to tell these stories – a Deaf young woman, a queer teen, and a young man of Indigenous descent – I don’t feel like Bride Hunt had anything new to say about any of the topics it addressed.

The writing was good – the prose isn’t lush but it is heartfelt, and it flows beautifully. I would have liked to see Bride Hunt go through one more round of editing – mostly to smooth out the seemingly random shifts between past- and present-tense – but it’s a solid book. It’s not amazing, but it’s definitely not bad, either.

The Bride Hunt of Elk Mountain is reminiscent of books like The Grace Year and The Handmaid’s Tale, and the world Lumen Reese constructs is one that feels creepily believable.

A quick summary: Elk Mountain is a deeply religious farm town situated on a mountain, and the folks who live there hold tightly to their traditions. Their most sacred tradition is the bride hunt: all girls between 15-20 are taken far up the mountain, then left to be “claimed” by any of the eligible unmarried men of the town. They believe whatever happens in the bride hunt is God’s will; unsurprisingly, their religion demands that girls/women are submissive homemakers. After a tragic bride hunt five years ago, outsider Dan Lightman returns to the mountain to try and protect the younger sisters of his murdered love.

What I loved:
-The descriptions of the setting are well done without being overdone, and it’s really easy to picture Elk Mountain and it’s religious culture.
-The three sisters - Nellie, Beck, and Lizzie - are unique characters who all have different responses to the horror of their upcoming Bride Hunt. It was also nice to see sisters portrayed as close and loyal, as opposed yo being combative.
-The backstory of the last bride hunt added a really great level of intrigue; Dan’s guilt and sense of purpose for the sisters was so clearly established.
-One of the sisters is deaf and uses ASL; it’s not used as a gimmicky plot point at all, and it was great to see that representation
-There’s a really sweet f/f love story…like so sweet 🥺

What didn’t work for me:
-Most of the story was told from Dan’s perspective, but I would have preferred having more chapters from the POV of the sisters. I wanted their stories more centered, rather than Dan’s savior complex arc. OR possibly having flashback chapters from his first time in Elk Mountain…that could have been cool.
-The beginning was slow and repetitive. It took a long time to get to the actual bride hunt. Once we got there, I couldn’t out the book down.
-I liked the ending, but I needed a bit more development for how it gets to that point. I can’t say more without giving spoilers.

Overall, this is a solid book. My critiques were in no way dealbreakers, and I really loved all the main characters. If you like dystopian stories with a focus on religion and/or feminism, you should definitely pick this up!

Thank you to the publisher for the eARC!

I really enjoyed this book! I thought the story was completely unique and although it is fiction, it still felt very relevant to some aspects of our current culture.

More than just a great story, I also loved the characters and I was rooting for all of them until the very end - hoping they all achieved their own happy endings.

If I had to complain about anything, it would be that the very ending was a little rushed. But it wasn't so rushed that it ruined the story, I still really enjoyed it.

So...let's imagine, The Handmaid's Tale is going on in Boston. What's going on in the rest of the "former" US? In Elk Mountain, the young men hunt all eligible women to find their wives. It's a tradition...at least here on the mountain, for this fringe sect of Winter Catholics.

Dan Lightman has returned to try and right the wrongs from the last Bride Hunt when the girl he loved tragically died. He's come back to save her three sisters. With the help of a hired killer and their older brother, the young women train to fight and struggle with the truth of who they are and the choices their parents have made.

Lumen Reese has written a book that is part post-apocalyptic, small-town Appalachia + part contemporary feminist + part LGBT/Queer + part love story. It's sweet and tragic and terrifying.

I hope there's a sequel.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

The premise was so good., I felt a very dystopian vibe going into it. So much hope and potential going into it.... fell flat for me.

If you like religious dystopias, you will enjoy THE BRIDE HUNT OF ELK MOUNTAIN. It's well written, well paced, and has a fleshed-out, believable world. The end is just a bit too neat and tidy, but that will appeal to people who want to dream of a better world.

The sad irony of this book (and the reason I couldn't give it more than 3 stars) is that while its major theme is the danger patriarchal religious standards pose to women, most of the narration is from the perspective of a man with a saviour complex. We get vignettes of the women's perspectives, just enough to give us a vague shape of who they are, but the lack of their voices from the narrative silences them as effectively as the oppressive strictures of their upbringing. If we are to hear about their pain and suffering, I wish the author had at least given them the dignity of sharing their own story.

I realise that the author is a woman who has set out to give voice to the most vulnerable in society (per her Goodreads bio), but after the events of this year and the years leading up to it I am too damn tired to give anyone a free pass.

So much potential, yet so much disappointment.

Wow, this book was the dark type of read I typically enjoy. Great characterization and could totally see this as a film. Thanks Netgalley for the ARC.

Every five years the girls of Elk Mountain wake up in the woods, where the simple farm boys they grew up with become predators and hunt them for brides.

Dan Lightman returns to the mountain to help the Marlow sisters. Lizzie is twenty, deaf since childhood and worried that she could end up married to a man who won't learn to communicate with her, that she won't have a voice in her own home. Beck is seventeen, exchanging secret letters with a girl from the other side of the mountain, and she'll kill or die before she'll marry anyone else. Nellie is only fourteen, and all she wants is a few more years, to grow up on her own terms.

All three girls live in the shadow of their beautiful eldest sister, Julia. Five years ago -at the last Bride Hunt- she refused the man who caught her, and she was killed for it. The barbaric ritual is a sacred rite of passage to a fringe sect of Catholicism in post-apocalyptic, small-town Appalachia. Dan is one of the hunt's only critics. He was once too afraid to fight for the girl he loved, but now he’s back with a hired cutthroat and a plan to save the remaining Marlow sisters from their gruesome fate...

This book needs to be on your radar! I love it so much!

Every 5 years the people of Elk Mountain and some of the surrounding towns send their young daughters to the woods to be hunted by the young farmer men as wifes. The girls (who are as young as 15 years old) have no say in the matter, they are drugged with a sleeping agent and set in the woods to be found and grabbed by the young man who has eyes for her, if two young men want the same girl they can fight to the death for her. These “events” can get quite violent. No one knows the violence of the hunts quite like Dan Lightfoot and the whole Marlow family. 5 years ago Dan was in love with Julia Marlow and she with him but she had to be in the bride hunt and Dan didn’t want to be a part of such a terrible ritual where women’s freedoms are taken away so he decided to sit it out and wait at the finish line and see who picked his Julia. Well, Julia was grabbed by a man, a brute named Alden May but she fought him and he didn’t like that one bit and he did terrible things to her and then killed her and did it all in the name of his God. Alden didn’t receive any punishment for his terrible and unspeakable crimes, he said God told him to do the things he did and he’s even eligible to participate in the next bride hunt. Dan has come back because Julia had 3 younger sisters and at least 2 of them will have to be in the bride hunt with Alden and Alden will for sure want one of the Marlow girls to make up for not getting Juila. Julia’s youngest sister, Nellie is only 14 and hoping that she doesn’t have to be in the bride hunt because usually the girls are at least 15 but the men who run the bride hunt want her in there, she remembers seeing her sister’s body carried out of those woods so she is very scared and much too young to be a bride, to have to breed children with someone she doesn’t even know, they all are too young, even the ones who are in their early 20s. Dan doesn’t want these innocent girls to have to go through such trauma again and he will do whatever he can to protect and save them. So, Nellie is the youngest. Beck is the middle girl, she’s in love and wants to marry her love but there are lots of young men who have their eyes on her. Lizzie is the oldest living girl and she is deaf, she worries that the wrong man will pick her and they won’t want to learn sign language to communicate with her. Dan hires a hired gun to help train the girls and who will be in the woods to help protect the girls and get them out before Alden can get to them.

Things happen as they do in the woods and when it comes time for all the girls to marry their farmer men, a young girl by the name of Marcie Fifield makes a huge sacrifice to finally put an end to these terrible games for women’s sexual freedom. There was happiness to be had though because two of the girls got to be with who they wanted and the third is just living her life and not worrying about marriage.

This book made me cry at times, it was so sad seeing what some of those girls went through, I really felt for them. I loved reading the parts where Griffin is training them and seeing them make so much progress in defending themselves. As long as there are men on this planet, all women should know some of the basics of defending themselves. I loved seeing the girls of this book become warriors, fighting for their rights as young women and winning. It’s nice to see that they got a happy ending after all the hell they endured for generations.

*I received a copy of this book on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for this opportunity*

THE BRIDE HUNT OF ELK MOUNTAIN tells the story of the Marlow sisters-- two young women and one child who have been entered into the Bride Hunt, an event that takes place every five years where men literally track and hunt down eligible girls who have been scattered on a mountainside. The first Hunt since their eldest sister, Julia, was raped and murdered after refusing the man who found her first, a family friend returns to the community to try and prepare the girls as best as he can.

This book had some of the best representation and character development I've read this year. One of the sisters belongs to the LGBTQ+ community, one suffers from a hearing disability-- each sisters development is realistic and influences the choices they make throughout the book. The book also has timely commentary on feminism, religion, and racism; and every element Lumen Reese added to the story IS important to the story, they're not simply there for represtation points. The setting is also masterfully done-- the nature of the dystopian society is never fully fleshed out or discussed, instead its the responsibility of the reader to pick up on the tiny hints sprinkled throughout.

Overall, THE BRIDE HUNT is genuinely wonderful dystopian read; perfect for fans of The Handmaid's Tale or anyone who enjoys alternative history/distopian books!

An absorbing tale of a potential, horrifying future. I could see certain societies regressing to this level of functioning: extreme religious zeal and homestead based survivalism.

I would’ve liked to see more time spent on the actual bride hunt, maybe a prologue detailing the previous one.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and Victory Editing for a copy.

I enjoyed this interesting dystopian exploration on religious zealotry and women's rights. I think this will invite excellent conversations for book clubs, etc. My only criticism is how unbalanced the content was in that we had to read blow by blow the girls' self defense training, but the end of the story wraps up neatly in a small number of paragraphs as though it would wrap up so simply. I found the book truly engaging and caught myself thinking about it while at work. I look forward to reading more by this author.

While similar to Gather the Daughters (which I loved) this isn’t quite as dark or twisted. I do think Dan’s perspective could be edited down a bit, and I wished we’d had more from the girls perspectives, but nonetheless, it was a great read. The characters where so well developed, that I wanted to stay up late because I needed to know what was going o happen to them.

This is another hidden 💎

I had a great time reading The Bride Hunt of Elk Mountain. The prose is simple, the atmosphere dark and ominous and the characters lovable. I knew I'd like this book after reading the author's dedication, it made me laugh out loud. The only thing I'd critique is the ending. It felt a bit "too convenient a solution".
I'd describe the novel as feminist-dystopian-cultish. If you like "The Power" or The Change by Kirsten Miller, you'll most likely love this book too.

I sincerely hope this gets the attention it deserves. It was the perfect read for a dark and cold winter in New Zealand.

Thank you Netgalley for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was one of those books that felt immediately engrossing. It has a cinematic quality that instantly sucked me in. I could see every scene in a visual way and the intensity of the fully-loaded plot bled right threw the pages and imprinted onto my brain.

This story is deep and dystopian. A town that revolves around the bride hunt, where every 5 years the young men of their town hunt for their brides. A hunt where women are not allowed to turn down men and have died for doing so in the past. Three young sisters will be part of this year's bride hunt, much against their will, unless something can be done to save them.
It took me a moment to get into this book, but the world building was fantastic and the depth of the story was gripping.