Heartless Hunter -

Heartless Hunter

The Crimson Moth, Book One

Author: Kristen Ciccarelli

Published: February 20, 2024

Rune’s life changes dramatically after a revolution that reduces witches from powerful rulers to hunted outcasts. By day, she hides behind a facade as a superficial socialite, but by night, she’s the Crimson Moth, a witch vigilante rescuing her kind. When a rescue mission fails, she attracts the attention of Gideon Sharpe, a notorious witch hunter, by pretending to be romantically interested in him. As Gideon infiltrates her world under false pretenses, he discovers that Rune is more than she appears and grapples with his feelings for someone he may be destined to hunt. This romantic fantasy duology begins with a thrilling blend of danger, deception, and forbidden love.

Easily my best read in August. If you are looking for extensive worldbuilding, you won’t find that here. What you will find is great character development and a great plot. Rune was almost exactly as I expected her to be, however, we never really get to see the Crimson Moth in action, and that disappointed me. I would have loved to see more of that side of her. The enemies to lovers and fake dating trope was well done and you could feel their internal struggles as they tested each other repeatedly. Gideon is what I want to see in an enemy for this type of read and they really did stay enemies the entire time in the sense that their priorities were still competing up until the very end. Super fast-paced for its length and I cannot wait for the next installmenet.

Heartless Hunter is easy to reccommend as it was easy to read, understand, and the story just flows really well.