AUTHOR: Kristen Ciccarelli
SERIES: The Crimson Moth
GENRE: Fantasy
AGE: Young Adult
BLURB:
On the night Rune’s life changed forever, blood ran in the streets. Now, in the aftermath of a devastating revolution, witches have been diminished from powerful rulers to outcasts ruthlessly hunted due to their waning magic, and Rune must hide what she is.
Spending her days pretending to be nothing more than a vapid young socialite, Rune spends her nights as the Crimson Moth, a witch vigilante who rescues her kind from being purged. When a rescue goes wrong, she decides to throw the witch hunters off her scent and gain the intel she desperately needs by courting the handsome Gideon Sharpe – a notorious and unforgiving witch hunter loyal to the revolution – who she can’t help but find herself falling for.
Gideon loathes the decadence and superficiality Rune represents, but when he learns the Crimson Moth has been using Rune’s merchant ships to smuggle renegade witches out of the republic, he inserts himself into her social circles by pretending to court her right back. He soon realizes that beneath her beauty and shallow façade, is someone fiercely intelligent and tender who feels like his perfect match. Except, what if she’s the very villain he’s been hunting?
Kristen Ciccarelli’s Heartless Hunter is the thrilling start to a romantic fantasy duology where the only thing more treacherous than being a witch…is falling in love.
Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for an arc of this book.
I will say that if you like Serpent & Dove (at least book 1) you’ll probably like this one as well. It’s really about the same level of interesting things happening and romance as S&D. However, there are definitely are a few differences.
I think the main difference is that it definitely feels a bit more enemies — I guess I have no idea how to explain it. When I was reading it I was really getting S&D vibes. But it was good enough on its own and I’m definitely invested for the second book.
I think the major thing that I kind of wished about this book was that — it’s hard to explain. I felt like something was missing and I don’t know what it was but like it’s a solid four star read for me. I was really invested but I have no idea how to explain why I felt like something was missing. Or maybe it was just so similar to some other books I’ve read about witch hunters and witches that it just it just didn’t give me what I was looking for.
I really enjoyed our main character. Rune, I thought she was really intriguing. I definitely liked her arc in this book. I think that there was one part towards the end I was kind of unhappy with but overall I really did like her arc.
This book definitely is very on the end of morally gray and what’s good versus evil like what side is good? What side is bad yet at the same time it was done in a way that you kind of still – there’s a side you want to root for.
I thought the book was really well written. It was really easy to get into it flowed and it was a dual point of view book. So our two main characters Gideon and Rune both had chapters in this book and we kind of get two points of you so it was kind of interesting to see that.
Overall, I think this was a really solid first entry and a new witch hunter witches enemies to lovers YA series. Although it definitely had some more little more, I wouldn’t say it’s explicit spice. It’s definitely not as as tame as some other YA books. So just before warned about that it’s not closed door.
I think the thing that most about this book is that I really wished some of the side characters were a little bit stronger. I felt sometimes they were left behind for the main characters and that they didn’t add too terribly much to the book. I feel like this really plays into the end of the book as well. Just that I think things would have been much better at the end of the book if the side characters were stronger.
I am very excited for the next book in the series, so I am looking forward to it!