ALA Booklist (Thu Apr 28 00:00:00 CDT 2022)

Margaret's mother is an alchemist who disappeared on a research trip three months ago, so Margaret lives alone at the edge of the forest. When she's out chopping firewood one night, she spies the hala, a ghostly white fox that is the target of the Halfmoon Hunt. The team of two that catches the hala is rewarded with fame and fortune, not to mention the magically lucrative opportunity to research the hala's corpse. Since Margaret can't hunt alone, she resigns herself to missing this chance, until she's approached by wannabe alchemist Weston, the perfect companion. Well, almost perfect s isn't really an alchemist, strictly speaking, but he needs to become one to help his family survive. Together, Wes and Margaret might save themselves, and each other, from their dim futures. As she did in her debut, Down Comes the Night (2021), Saft skillfully engineers an odd pair that are forced to work together. This standalone will definitely hook readers who like a little enemies-to-friends in their romances.

Kirkus Reviews

An aspiring alchemist and a talented sharpshooter team up to hunt an ancient beast.When the hala appears each autumn, New Albion's Halfmoon Hunt soon follows. Teams consisting of a marksman and an alchemist hunt the creature in pursuit of fame and fortune. Though the Katharist church condemns the hala as a demon, 17-year-old Margaret Welty has been taught by her Yu'adir father that it is a sacred creation of God. Legend even has it that the hala's alchemized carcass could be forged into the philosopher's stone. If Maggie wins the hunt and kills the hala, her alchemist mother, gone for months, may finally return home to stay. Weston Winters, son of Banvish-Sumic immigrants, has been fired from every apprenticeship he's charmed his way into. Being taken on as Evelyn Welty's student is his best chance at becoming an alchemist, but when he arrives at Welty Manor, Maggie immediately dislikes him. However, after they ultimately come to understand each other's personal motives, they rely on one another to achieve their dreams. This atmospheric, emotionally driven story focuses on the slow-burn romance between two outcasts who yearn to belong and who face discrimination for their cultural and religious backgrounds. Characters are cued as White, and New Albion is reminiscent of early-20th-century America: the Banvish-Sumic, Katharist, and Yu'adir people read as fantasy-world corollaries of Irish Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish immigrants, respectively.Deeply romantic and utterly magical. (map) (Fantasy. 14-18)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

Two white, religious outcasts-an alchemist and a marksman-team up in a divine fox hunt in this vividly written, 1920s-esque fantasy romance and blunt political parable. Months after 17-year-old Jewish-analogue Margaret Welty-s researcher and alchemist mother left her behind in their crumbling New Albion manor, the Halfmoon Hunt comes to her small colonial seaside town, intending to kill the last living demiurge, the hala. And with it arrives working-class Catholic-analogue emigrants- son Weston Winters, 18, who attempts to charm Maggie into a last-ditch apprenticeship with her mother to save his reformist political ambitions. After Wes-s mother is injured and his hopes further endangered, Wes and Maggie partner up to win the festive-but deadly-hala hunt, save Weston-s starving family, and bring Margaret-s mother home. But as their slow-growing attraction blooms alongside a rivalry with the bigoted mayor-s son, Wes must find a way to crack a puzzle involving Maggie-s mother-and Maggie must choose the future she wants. Saft-s (Down Comes the Night) confident prose organically charts the well-characterized protagonists- romance, but its allegorized Catholic and Jewish experiences center on stereotype and its magic on rigid formula. Fans of Brandon Sanderson and Libba Bray may nevertheless appreciate this light, fantastical romance. Ages 14-up. Agent: Claire Friedman and Jessica Mileo, Inkwell Management. (Mar.)

School Library Journal (Tue Mar 01 00:00:00 CST 2022)

Gr 7 Up The Halfmoon Hunt has come to Margaret Welty's village and the redwood forest that surrounds it. Hunters from all over the world come to try to kill the last living hala, a legendary fox whose body parts offer incredible magical properties to alchemists. Wes, an unlicensed alchemist with undiagnosed dyslexia, is in desperate need of a mentor, and Evelyn Welty is the last alchemist left. When Wes ends up at Margaret's door in search of her ever-absent mother, they realize that the Halfmoon Hunt they want no part of could give them exactly what they desire most. For Margaret, that means rare alchemical supplies that would make her mother return home, and for Wes, it means proof that Evelyn would find him a worthy apprentice. Margaret is best described as a cactus with abandonment issues, while Wes works hard for his cheerful optimism as Saft leans into the sunshine/grumpy romance trope. Her sophomore novel has her signature lush prose and evocative settings, with dynamic characters who pull the plot along in its slow moments. The world of New Albion mirrors political-cultural tensions of history, with Wes's family being Banvish and experiencing similar discrimination to what Irish people faced in early 20th-century America, while Maggie is Yu'adir, coded Judaism, and there are discussions of prejudice and Yu'adir facing massacres overseas, akin to the pogroms of that period. Readers should be aware of this version of anti-Semitism, as well as animal death and injury. VERDICT This read-alike to Maggie Stiefvater's The Scorpio Races is worth purchasing. While there are heavy topics, this fantasy fills a familiar plot arc with a unique setting, cast, and a lovely romance between two characters who are considered outsiders by society at large. Emmy Neal