Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC!

This was a solid 'romantasy' book. with the romance as the main focus. The enemies-to-lover trope is one of my favorites and kept me reading. The world-building and magic system was very interesting, and I wanted more of that. The writing style and easy-to-follow story made this a very quick read. Both of the MCs were flawed and pretty easy to root for.

This is three stars for me mostly because the plot almost fully centers around the romance and getting the MCs together. Which, if that's what you like, you'll love this book! For me, I like the romance to be woven into a deeper plot. I wanted more of the world-building and history and magic system. But it was still a very entertaining read that I finished in a few days. If you like fantasy that is easy to understand, quick to read, lighter on the plot and heavy on the romance, this is for you!

Honestly until the ending, I was kind of just cruising through Heartless Hunter. You know that feeling when you're not totally absorbed, but still interested enough to continue? I was waiting for the other shoe to drop - and while the ending shock definitely dropped the shoe, I'm still not sure I'll pick up the next one. For one, the premise that a sexual assault survivor has to 'sleep with someone' to make sure they aren't a witch and aren't hiding witches marks, made me deeply uncomfortable throughout the book. While that's challenged by the main character, I didn't feel like the other people got it or even stood up for him?

“It was no gift, being allowed to live while the one you loved most was dead—because of you.”

A witch hunter and a witch!? What could go wrong?

4.5 stars

“It’s not murder if you deserve it.”

Turns out, everything.

"The hunted had fallen for the hunter."

This was so good!! I absolutely love witch and witch hunter books so I was immediately drawn into this one. but the characters are what really did it for me.

“She was an informer. A witch hater. A darling of the New Republic. Rune was the girl who betrayed her grandmother.”

Rune was, on the outside, a shallow socialite who turned her grandmother in to be killed by the hunters. On the inside, she was the Crimson Moth, fighting to free captured witches before they were killed. She went through agony when her grandmother died, the guilt, for obvious reasons, she carries around drives her to never give up. So much so that she turned to the Captain of the Hunters to gain more information.

“You are not the things that happened to you, Gideon.”

I found the author wrote emotion really well, we felt what the characters were feeling, Gideon and Rune, and that always improves any story.

“None of us can escape our pasts.”

Gideon. Killer. Captain. Tailor. A broken man. I won’t say much about his character, I would classify most of his motives and backstory as spoilers, but his strength, his obsession with hunting witches, was justified…in a sense. Justified in killing bad witches, not innocent people. Reading his POV was heartbreaking at times, he was so sad, guilty, and grief-driven. But I love him so much. You’ll just have to trust me on this 😂

“Most of her friends still watched them, some of them smirking, others murmuring behind their hands. Were they laughing at him? Was she laughing at him? He thought again of another girl. Another party. One where he’d been paraded around and humiliated.”

The reveals and the ending!!! My heart was racing for the last like, 35% of the book 😅

“Cress was like that: pretty from a distance, tempting you closer. Like a fool, you were happy to approach.” He was staring at the space over Rune’s shoulder, his expression haunted. “It was only after she’d reeled you in that she revealed her true nature. But by then, it was too late.”
He met Rune’s gaze.
“She was already eating you alive.”




____

I need the next book 😭

Oh this cover is so stunning! This is what first pulled me in. This is first time reading from this author.

The writing from the author is amazing and i will definitely read more from the author in the future. It is great to read a story with a strong female lead that has secrets that can be deadly. This is a cat and mouse storyline which i really liked. I cannot wait to read book two in this series.

Story def keeps you engaged and wanting to stay up past your bedtime to finish.

Thanks NetGalley for letting me read and review.

-Enemies To Lovers
-Opposites Attract (Witch | Witch Hunter)
-Love Triangle
-Political Intrigue
-Cat and Mouse
-Dual POV

"Heartless Hunter" is a must-read for fans of the Romantasy genre. From start to finish I was captivated by the author's storytelling and intricate world they crafted.

I went into this book with high hopes and it was even better than I had anticipated. The characters were so well-developed their struggles, fears and reservations really brought them to life. That ending, just wow!

My only critique is that I feel like portions of this book trend towards more of a NA rating rather than YA but that's just my personal opinion.

If you haven't pre-ordered this book yet, I absolutely think it's worth reading!

Thank you Kristen Ciccarelli, Net Galley and St. Martin's Press - Wednesday Books for providing me with an ARC of this book!

3.5

I thought the world building in this book was quite good and I loved how the explanations of the different levels of magic were added as forenotes to certain chapters. It was a fun, easy, and fairy light read in terms of a fantasy.

And while I liked each of the MCs individually, their backstories felt solid and they each had personality, I thought that their romance happened way too quickly and I didn’t feel much of a spark between them. I just couldn’t see what they saw in each other. Seeing as their relationship was at the core of the story, the forced sense of chemistry let me down. I would have loved to see more of the dynamics of The Crimson Moth and Gideon meeting each other.

This was book 1 of a duology and while it didn’t blow me away it did end on a bit of a cliffhanger so I likely will be interested in reading book 2 to see how the storyline progresses.

This book was perfection as far as enemies to lovers. I loved the cat-and-mouse game and the relationship that developed between the two main characters. I thought that the world-building was easy to understand and there were some historical fiction elements thrown in as well. I think that the storyline was fast-paced which made me want to keep reading. I will definitely be continuing this series!

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this story. I thought that the world-building was really immersive and compelling, and the magic system fit really well into this story. I enjoyed the way the characters were written, and I found their chemistry to be really believable and well done. I feel like sometimes the enemies-to-lovers trope can be a bit tired but it was done really well in this story! I've read a couple of stories where the main characters are a witch-witchhunter pair, and I do sometimes find their interactions implausible because I feel like the lifetime of conditioning and belief systems sometimes go by the wayside because *horny*, but I enjoyed the build up to the relationship a lot in this story.
I do think that this story is definitely older YA bordering on new adult, but in general YA could use stories that serve an older audience within the genre, so I didn't find the language or themes to be too much, necessarily.

I don’t know if I liked this one or didn’t my feelings are completely in between! So I’m settling in a 3 star review!

4/5 - this was so much fun!
The dynamic between witch and witch hunter is always *chefs kiss* and this was done so well.
The magic system was interesting and the world building was immersive.
I enjoyed my journey with the characters so much!
This was one of my most anticipated reads of this year and it didn't disappoint.
I'm a huge fan of the enemies to lovers and this scratched that itch.
I'll be reading the rest Kristen's books and recommending this to anyone who wants to read a fun, engaging fantasy romance.

gorgeous fantasy, though i don't think it's YA. it's really well done and i love the enemies to lovers vibe. Thanks for the ARC!

This book was super good! I ate it up as soon as I started reading. The use of period blood icked me though. I need book 2 😭

4.5/5

This book was such a delight to read! Pretty much devoured this book in one sitting and finished it with a desire for more. There is nothing that I love more than a witch and witch hunter enemies to lovers book. Or any kind of "monster" x monster hunter enemies to lovers if I'm being quite honest. Each character and their motivations is written SO well, and it was hard not to fall in love with the secondary characters either. No character is without their own reasonings to being morally gray and the choices they make. While I found the world building a tad bit lacking (e-arcs that don't have maps are the bane of my existence), I think that the characters and their direct location building made up for it. I am always a fan of there being a price to the use of magic, and Ciccarelli explains the blood magic system in a way that is easy to follow along. I LOVE whenever authors have a checks and balances methodology to magic, especially in the case of Rune who has to think creatively on how to use her own blood (genius use!) without leaving a silver scar that screams she's a witch.

However, I do think that since this book has slightly descriptive sex scenes on page should be marketed as NA, not YA where 12 year-olds can pick it up. But then again this is coming from someone who read several things they shouldn't have on Wattled at that age so who am I to say anything. I was also slightly uncomfortable with the aspect of SA being a common occurrence of the book with stripping women to see if they had any scars, marking them as a witch and sending them off to be killed. With that, please check content warnings as it is frequently mentioned.

I will be sitting here screaming internally while I wait for the next book.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for an advanced reader's copy in exchange for my honest review.

I have not read a book so addicting in such a long time, I had to force myself to slow down so that it wouldn’t end too soon. I loved this tale—the characters are beautifully crafted, complex and intriguing, the plot lines aren’t cringy cliché but are so rich and fulfilling, I wish the second book was available so I can satiate this new craving for these characters and this world. It was devastating, in all the good ways. And, importantly, unlike other enemies-to-lovers novels, the interest didn’t die when the characters finally admitted their love for one another—it only become that much more intense. This was a beautifully haunting book that I will not soon forget.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for providing me with an arc of this book.

First off that ending broke my heart and I’m so curious about the sequel. This was a good story. It reminds me of Powerless with all of the deception and disguising of true identities and forbidden love that ends in a cliffhanger. I love the fact this was dual POV which really helped understand Gideons character more. Rune was a pretty good MFC but Alex and Gideons characters and story was so good and to me was more interesting then Rune’s storyline. There were some things I wasn’t very into though. I did think this moved at an inconsistent pace. It was very slow and then got super fast then went back to being slow again and back to being fast. To me it was too much. I also wasn’t sure how the love built between Rune and Gideon. They didn’t share much with each other except a few chapters. I just don’t know how they both feel in love with each other that fast. Outside of that this was a good read and I do think a lot of people would enjoy this however if you don’t like cliffhangers this wouldn’t be one for you!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for this ARC. Thoroughly enjoyed this fantastic adventure with great characters. Can’t wait for the next book.

Ok this was so good and I binged it in one sitting, I couldn't put it down! I'm always a sucker for the witch/witch hunter romance. It always has great enemies to lovers, inner conflict, and great character arcs and this is definitely the case here. In this first book Gideon and Rune have enemies to lovers to enemies again so it's going to be a slowww burn for this series which I ADORE.

The blood witches are so cool and I love the magic system as well as the side characters.

Several things did keep me from giving this a full 5 stars though. There was some world-building and what we got i really enjoyed but it wasn't enough and feel like we need a lot more. Hopefully, we will in the next book! and secondly, while Giedeon and Rune had great chemistry, I feel like they didn't actually get to know each other very much. Now, obviously with Rune having to keep her being a witch a secret there is only so much she can share, understandably, but I just wish that they had more meaningful interactions with each other before claiming to be in lovewith eachother.

Thank you NetGalley for providing this digital ARC.

3.5 ⭐️

This was a good YA Fantasy leaning towards New Adult title. The world building was not overly complicated and the characters were likable enough. The romance was a bit rough, but that may be more from my dislike of the torn between two brothers even though I don’t really feel the romance for one but he’s my bestie troupe. The plot twists were fairly predictable but added to the story. I’m definitely intrigued enough to want to read book two just to see how it plays out in the end.

This is the first novel I have read by author Kristen Ciccarelli and the first YA fantasy in over a year.
The world building was a bit slow and left me with unanswered questions.
In general this novel is a good vs evil sort of storyline but to her credit, Ciccarelli does a great job twisting the reader's perception of who is who as the story unfolds.
The enemies to lovers plot is apparent early on but the twists involved unravel what seemed inevitable.
The pace picks up significantly at about the 75-80 % mark. so much is happening that I did not want to stop reading before the finale.
Over all good YA Fantasy.

First book of 2024. I started about three different books and none was holding my interest until this one. Once I picked it up, I couldn't put it down. Read it in two sittings, and I was CAPTIVATED. It's been a while since a book has been this easy to read, because I'm usually distracted or thinking about other things. Anyway. This book. It has everything. Enemies to lovers, adventure suspense, romance! I've been a fan of Kristen since I read The Last Namsara, and this just solidified it. What a way to start the year. WOW.