Book Review: “The Hob’s Bargain”

* * C

Patricia Briggs’ stand alone novel “The Hob’s Bargain” is a fantasy set in what seems to be an alternate reality. It’s hard to say for sure, as the world the story takes place in is a bit of a thumbnail sketch. The setting is the village of Fallbrook and the lands and two other villages that surround it.

The main character, Aren, is a woman with second sight. Her husband is (predictably) killed by raiders, which just happens to occur right before a nearby mountain collapses and wild magic, which has been held in check for an unspecified time (a century, at least?) by human blood magic, is suddenly freed. A powerful wildling (magical creature), the Hob, allies with Aren and the village to help them against the raiders and the other wildlings, in exchange for one small favor. To know what it is, read the book.

The pacing and build up of tension in the story are good. The characters are solid. I liked the ending, but felt the book wrapped up a bit too quickly after the climax. Several other elements of the plot seemed rushed. What I disliked most was the truncated nature of the world. Since this book was a stand alone novel, it necessarily needed to spend less time world building than a series would, but there was so little that the setting felt constructed.

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