The Monster Hunter is the story of Benjamin Gaul, who shortly after his mother is killed by a mysterious creature in his home of Ceylon has to travel to Victorian England, the birthplace of a father he’s never known. So as a boy barely in his teens at the start of the story he has to travel around the globe whilst dealing with the death of his mother and the prospect of an unknown future. When he arrives in England life doesn’t much easier as he travels to an orphanage in Kent where he is to live until he is older.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from The Monster Hunter. I met the author, Kit Cox, at DemonCon in February and I only had his description of it to go on, and seeing as a few months had passed before I got around to reading this I’d all but forgotten what Mr Cox had said of the story. So as I began to read it I found I was delving into a world that I had no knowledge of and it was a lot of fun discovering it as I went through the story.

Benjamin Gaul is quite an innocent protagonist in a lot of ways who has to adapt to the world around him and the mysteries of this world he’s living in that is opened up by his mothers death.

The book does move along at a good pace, I especially found the chapter lengths really appealing. It felt like they were just about the right length for my personal reading pace and reading a chapter at a time was incredibly easy.

The story as a whole was engaging and I liked how some of the details about the monsters were revealed and how Benjamin comes across them. The details that Benjamin discovers is very nicely done and quite thorough but without it sounding like a textbook. It wasn’t too heavily thrown into my face and kind of drip fed as Benjamin is trying to find his place in the world.

The story is more about Benjamin though, and this new world he is in and the difficulties he’s having just dealing with other human beings. That’s something that the author does well; showing how Benjamin is adjusting to his new life and I felt for the lad at times.

Overall The Monster Hunter is a fun book that I found engaging and enjoyable to read.

As I said, I met Kit Cox at DemonCon down in Maidstone, in February and he comes across as a genuinely nice fella and was quite engaging.