The Witch Hunter is Boecker's debut novel, and is one that I have been waiting on for a while; in fact, I think I did a Waiting on Wednesday a few months back on it. In summary, this book is set in a fantasy version of ~16th century England, in a world where witches, ghosts, faeries, revenants, etc all exist. The story is centered around former witch hunter Elizabeth Grey, who is accused of witchcraft herself and turns over to a powerful wizard and his allies for help.

I thought the concept of this book was pretty interesting. Although there are quite a few YA books with witches, I haven't seen many YA books with a focus on inquisitors or witch hunters, so that's pretty unique. I was surprised to see that the writing is pretty simple compared to some of the YA books I've read recently, and it was a nice breath of fresh air. Boecker describes things "just enough" without overdoing it or inserting too much imagery.

Another thing I really liked was that it didn't end in a cliffhanger! It actually sort of ends in a happy ending, but Boecker also leaves some questions lingering for the second book. Sure, I don't mind cliffhangers all that much usually, but I hate waiting!

However, although the plot is great, my biggest complaint is that it went by a little too fast and as a result, some characters were underdeveloped. There was room for at least another couple of chapters in order to develop the characters better. I don't really feel a connection to John, George, etc. and felt like I don't actually know them yet. Hopefully, we get to know more about them in the sequel.

Overall, I recommend this book to YA fantasy fans and/or YA historical fiction fans. :-)