A Unique Romantasy
I have a love-hate relationship with romantasy books. I enjoy romance, and I like fantasy; but I’ve found most romantasies to be copy-cats of one another. As if there isn’t much variety to be found within the genre.
The Heartless Hunter (Crimson Moth #1) by Kristen Ciccarelli impressed me by how it managed to be unique!
A Summary
The Heartless Hunter introduces us to Rune, a wealthy socialite living as a witch in plain sight and spending her nights rescuing her fellow witches from the witch hunters that now run her homeland.
As part of her effort to gain intelligence and stay off the hunters’ radar, she begins to pursue Gideon Sharpe in a courtship. And as for Gideon, well, he’s suspicious of Rune to begin with. So what better plan is there than to grow close to her under the facade of courtship?
You can imagine how this might play out.
What I Liked about Heartless Hunter
- Engaging, well-written, and well-paced read
- Likable protagonists
- Colorful side characters
- A couple good plot twists
- Worldbuilding/setting
What I Liked Less
There were some gimmicky tropes (way overused in romantasy nowadays), including:
- enemies-to-lovers
- love triangle
- “good boy” vs “bad boy” in said love triangle
- “good boy” doesn’t get the girl (spoiler, but not really, because does he ever!?)
Content Concerns
This is an adult romantasy, so it’s not one geared toward teenagers. That being said, it was surprisingly clean.
There was minor swearing throughout.
Lots of yearning/longing/sexual tension throughout and one chapter toward the end with spicy content. I was disappointed by this because the entire book had been no-spice until that point and then continued to be no-spice throughout the rest. But because of that chapter, I couldn’t recommend this to younger readers or to those looking for no-spice romance.
If You Want More Like This…
If Heartless Hunter is your type of book, I’d recommend also checking out:
- Divine Rivals
- Ruthless Vows
- Wild Reverence
all by Rebecca Ross.
Final Thoughts on Heartless Hunter
This was definitely a four star read for me! I devoured it, enjoyed most of it, but I had to knock off a star for the sex chapter and all the tropes. I do want to read the next book in the duology, but I’m a little nervous the content concerns may increase with the story’s higher stakes and intensity.
Content Rating: Moderate
due to one chapter with sex scene
Copyright Kristen Ciccarrelli and Wednesday Books. Image from Amazon.
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