Book Review: The Debt Collector by Rachel Ann Hubert

The Debt Collector by Rachel Ann Hubert

 Book title: The Debt Collector
Author: Rachel Ann Hubert
Genre: Fantasy
Published: December 21, 2022
371 pages
My rating: 4/5

Evening had fallen, and I was already running late. I hurried past a mess of ivy-covered stone shops, their windows boarded up with roughly cut black wood from the forest to the east. I followed a path that seemed to narrow as I drew further in, carefully hurrying as I darted down a slope in the road that took me deeper into the city.

I glanced at my wrist and winced when I saw the flashing red coordinates.

Not much further now.

Poverty and desperation reign in Adelliah’s world. Like many people, she has made a deal with a money lender. The loan terms are generous: a lifetime to repay what was borrowed. But if a person dies before the loan is repaid, it’s Adelliah’s job as a debt collector to make sure that the loan doesn’t go unpaid. Her job is to collect the dead people’s souls to pay for their debts. Until one night, someone collects the soul first, and she must find out who did it and why.

The Debt Collector is an indie book and the first volume in Rachel Ann Hubert’s fantasy series Rise of the Tarnished. I was expecting a gritty urban fantasy-esque story, but this book wasn’t exactly what I expected. The first chapters focus on Adelliah’s work as a debt collector in several cities of the fantasy world. (As a sidenote, I wish the book would have had a map. There were quite a few different places to keep track of.) I really enjoyed these urban settings and the new characters Adelliah meets along the way.

However, as we got closer to the midpoint, the focus shifted, and my interest in the story began to wane a little. Adelliah and her new friends travel to a distant mountain to find a group of rebels who may have knowledge of who is stealing souls. From that point onward, the story moved away from the urban setting, and instead of collecting people’s souls, the characters are trying to figure out what’s going on with the rebels and what happened to a missing royal family. I didn’t find these parts of the story nearly as fascinating, although I continued to root for the characters—especially the navigation device Mio who I wanted to see more of!

As this is an indie book, I didn’t expect the writing to be at the same level as in a traditionally published book. That being said, this book would have benefited from a more thorough line edit. There were a lot of “I” sentences and several lines of dialogue where I wasn’t sure who was supposed to be speaking. I also found the climax with its final fight and twists and turns rather confusing.

Overall, however, I enjoyed the book a lot. If you like strong and resourceful female main characters, childhood friends to (potential) lovers, and a found family trope in a rather gritty and bleak fantasy setting, you might enjoy this book. I gave it four stars.