Heartless Hunter (Crimson Moth, #1) by Kristen Ciccarelli Series: The Crimson Moth #1
Published by Wednesday Books on February 20, 2024
Genres: Fantasy, Romance
Pages: 411
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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 The Crimson Moth duology, a romantic fantasy series where the only thing more treacherous than being a witch...is falling in love.
After reading another romantasy, A Fate Inked in Blood, and being disappointed, I wasn’t sure I wanted to jump into another one, Heartless Hunter. However, I’m really glad I did. Heartless Hunter, with its mysterious air, compelling main characters, and its interesting portrayal of witches and their hunters, kept me interested from the very first page.
“Because wherever Rune Winters went, her carefully crafted reputation came with her. She was an informer. A witch hater. A darling of the New Republic. Rune was the girl who betrayed her grandmother.”
Heartless Hunter follows Rune, a young heiress, who happens to be the granddaughter of a powerful witch. Learning that her grandmother’s secret of being a witch was about to be exposed, Rune reluctantly agrees with her grandmother to reveal her identity as a witch to authorities, since Rune too, would be executed if she were found to be a witch sympathizer. The world in which Rune resides just overthrew the monarchy—three sisters, who were incredibly powerful (and some might argue corrupt) witches—and therefore ended the prime of witches. It is an immediate death sentence to be a witch, but Runes’ exposure of her grandmother has a very important effect—everyone sees her as loyal to the New Republic and no one suspects her to be a witch herself.
But that’s exactly what Rune is, a witch. And not only that, she’s a bit of a vigilante witch at that, moonlighting as the Crimson Moth, who rescues witches from the hands of the Blood Guard before they can be executed. To avoid suspicion, Rune plays up the part of a shallow, self-absorbed socialite, flirting to get any information from unaware gentlemen with the right connections who seek her fortune. She’s successfully pulled off her rescues many times, but when she fails to find Seraphine, the witch her grandmother begged her to seek out before her execution, before the Blood Guard, Rune must set her sights on bigger fish with better information.
“‘Rune, no. My brother is a danger.’ He gently gripped her bare shoulder, turning her to face him. ‘To you especially.’
‘Your brother is a danger to every witch in the New Republic.’”
That’s where Gideon Sharpe, member of the Blood Guard, ardent witch hater, favored student of the Commandant, and older brother of her best friend Alex Sharpe steps in. But as Rune gets closer to Gideon, against Alex’s wishes, she suspects she isn’t the only one with ulterior motives. I really enjoyed watching the unfolding relationship between Rune and Gideon play out, even with their cringey dialogue. Not only do they have the whole will-they-won’t-they thing going for them, but they’re also both essentially playing chess against each other—laying traps for one another, avoiding detection, and then trying a different strategy to get what they want from the other.
It’s a cat and mouse game, but it’s not always clear who the cat and who the mouse is, which makes it all the more interesting to watch. I did find myself wishing that Heartless Hunter had kept the truth of Rune’s identity from the reader, instead of establishing that she was basically a double spy from the very beginning. I think it would have added a whole other layer of excitement to Gideon and Rune’s mind games if the reader didn’t know the truth of whether or not she was the Crimson Moth or a witch either and had to keep guessing too as the story unfolded.
“‘Truly. If I didn’t know better, I’d believe you were smitten with a Blood Guard captain who hunts down your own kind.’”
Regardless of how the novel chose to carry out that matter, Gideon and Rune have great chemistry. In spite of both of their plans to remain detached from the other and to merely pretend attraction to use each other for their own ends, the two are basically, well, moth to the flames, so to speak, and unable to resist the pull towards each other. Less thrilled is Alex, Gideon’s younger brother, who has harbored feelings for Rune from the very first moment he met her. Personally, I didn’t care much for this forced love triangle between Gideon, Rune, and Alex at all. I didn’t believe for a second that Rune could give up her secret identity and be content with a quiet life with Alex.
I did get tired of reading the constant guilt Gideon felt over moving in on his little brother’s girl. Both Rune and Gideon’s constant need to justify their feelings for each other and their actions is repetitive and gets stale. I would have preferred more showing here rather than the reiteration of their rationalizations for their choices in monologues in their inner thoughts. I kind of wish the love triangle featured different characters instead—View Spoiler » I’m really hoping this is something that happens in the sequel.
I found both Rune and Gideon to be compelling characters with sympathetic plights. It’s clear why each character has ended up choosing the paths they did and suitably regrettable that these choices have put them in direct opposition to each other. Unfortunately, outside of Rune and Gideon, I wasn’t attached to any of the other characters. None of them really have much of a life outside of Rune and Gideon. For instance, I have absolutely no idea what Alex does all day, outside of when he shows up to play piano at Rune’s house. The same is true of Harrow, Gideon’s mysterious helper with a past and vendettas against witches of her own. Outside of the time Harrow shows up to exchange information with Gideon, we don’t see the character. And this is a problem that extends to all of the side characters in this story.
Though this method of storytelling did allow for readers to get more attached to Gideon and Rune, it made the other characters feel rather shallow and like mere plot tools. However, because Heartless Hunter was written in this manner, it did make it easier for the novel to sneak in a twist, but I still saw it coming. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as it shows good planning on the author’s part and allows for the reader to anticipate the eventual reveal. Unfortunately, there’s not too much time left in Heartless Hunter after certain truths are made known, but I’m really excited to see how the sequel handles it.
One of the things that I enjoyed the most about this novel was how witches’ magic worked. Though it’s nothing new to see witches use blood in order to catch magic, per se, Heartless Hunter portrays “casting marks” as silvery cuts on women as dead giveaways to their witchery. To prevent detection, Rune refuses to cut herself, and instead uses bottled blood stored from the time of her month. Admittedly, old blood is not very potent, which makes for weaker spells. Stronger types of spells can use others’ blood, whether freely given or stolen, with darker, forbidden spells requiring stolen blood. Though an interesting concept, I don’t think this magical system, or Heartless Hunter as a whole, offers anything groundbreakingly original, but that’s okay, as I think the moral dilemma of the cost of power is always interesting.
I think anyone who is a fan of novels featuring witches, especially Serpent & Dove, will enjoy Heartless Hunter. I will caution readers that the novel does read more like a young adult novel rather than an adult fantasy novel, despite its one or two spicy scenes. And though I really loved the idea of the world—the way witches cast their spells, sort of a Victorian-esque society with carriages and dancing, and of a military organization taking over after the fall of witches—I think some readers will find themselves wishing for far more details in these areas. But because the novel doesn’t spend a lot of time providing this information, it lets the characters and the action have the focus of Heartless Hunter, which makes for a very quick and fun read. I look forward to reading the sequel.
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I’ve been curious about this book, and I think I’ve read something by this author years ago. But the YA feel would probably bug me, so I doubt I’ll read this.
I think the author is known for her other book, The Last Namsara, if that helps. I haven’t read that one myself, so I can’t offer you any comparisons, unfortunately. Yeah, I can definitely see how some of the YA-esque pining and decision making could be annoying to some readers.