Heartless Hunter

By Kristen Ciccarelli

☕︎☕︎☕︎☕︎

Heartless Hunter dropped me into a world where witches once ruled, then lost everything after a revolution, and now they’re hunted like criminals. The heroine Rune, is living a double life: sparkling socialite on the surface, undercover vigilante at night (queue Opalite by Taylor Swift). She’s smart, resourceful, and really good at acting like she doesn’t have a secret.

Enter Gideon. Witch-hunter. A little too good at his job, and a little too broody. Also… the brother of Rune’s best friend, Alex. Their whole relationship exists in that delicious space between will they kiss or kill?

It’s very fun to watch, if slightly stressful.

The story moves quickly, there’s high society political maneuvering, undercover missions, masked meets-cute (if almost getting killed counts as cute), and plenty of tension-filled banter. The world-building is easy to see without slowing down the plot, and I genuinely liked rooting for Rune as she tried to outsmart every powerful person in the room.

This book is delightful, and tropey. I love witches, secret identities, and forbidden romance, and this book delivers exactly that. My only small complaint is that a few twists reveal themselves a little early, and it’s clearly setting up for the duology’s second half , so don’t expect everything to tie up neatly.

But overall, this book was fun, fast, romantic in a high-stakes way, and full of characters I’m excited to read more about in the next book. I’m absolutely picking up the sequel.