Ottilie Colter and the Master of Monsters

May 1, 2021
As the first female huntsman, Ottilie faces threats within and outside of Fort Fiory following the events of Ottilie Colter and the Narroway Hunt (2021). Dredretches, the monsters the huntsmen protect the kingdom from, are changing their behaviors in a manner that signals danger (such as once-solitary kinds banding together and operating in coordinated ways). When dredretches start slipping into the fort itself, the other girls--menial workers called sculkies--grapple with just how vulnerable they are, being unarmed and untrained. Challenging the male-privileging status quo poses its own set of dangers, though--namely risking setting off a (literal) witch hunt. The leadership has become aware of the hooded figure from the first installment and believes that in order for a dredretch to have gotten into the fort, someone must have let it in. When Ottilie isn't trying to figure a way to get the other girls trained to protect themselves or scoring points to improve her huntsman ranking, she teams with Alba and Skip to try to sneak off with books that might unlock the truth about the hex and why the dredretches are plaguing the Narroway. The split focus--further divided between her friend Scoot's feeling like she's ditching him and Ottilie's getting a first crush--maintains a sense of forward progress while Ottilie uncovers answers for questions posed in the first book and allows complex characterization to shine. Most characters read as White. Exceptionally fun; readers will clamor for the trilogy's conclusion. (Fantasy. 10-15)

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