Rebel Witch by Kristen Ciccarelli Series: The Crimson Moth #2
Published by Wednesday Books on February 18, 2025
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The stakes are even higher in this epic, romantic conclusion to the New York Times bestselling Crimson Moth duology.
A WITCH...Rune Winters is on the run. Ever since the boy she loved, Gideon Sharpe, revealed who she was and delivered her into enemy hands, everyone wants her dead. If Rune hopes to survive, she must ally herself with the cruel and dangerous Cressida Roseblood, who’s planning to take back the Republic and reinstate a Reign of Witches—something Cressida needs Rune to accomplish.
A WITCH HUNTER...Apparently it wasn’t enough for Rune to deceive Gideon; she’s now betrayed him by allying herself with the witch who made his life a living hell. Gideon won’t allow the Republic to fall to the witches and be plunged back into the nightmares of the past. In order to protect this new world he fought for, every last witch must die—especially Rune Winters.
AN IMPOSSIBLE CHOICE...When Rune makes Gideon an offer he can’t refuse, the two must pair up to accomplish dangerous goals. The more they’re forced into each other’s company, the more Gideon realizes the feelings he had for Rune aren’t as dead and buried as he thought. Now he’s faced with a terrible choice: sacrifice the girl he loves to stop a monster taking back power, or let Rune live and watch the world he fought so hard for burn.
In Kristen Ciccarelli's Rebel Witch, the exciting conclusion to The Crimson Moth duology, love has never been so deadly.
Rebel Witch is the anticipated follow up to Heartless Hunter, a romantasy involving the forbidden feelings between a witch named Rune and a witch Hunter named Gideon. Though I’ve come to view enemies to lovers as a romantic trope that is almost impossible to flawlessly pull off, I really enjoyed Heartless Hunter and watching the cat and mouse relationship between Gideon and Rune unfold. Unfortunately, Rebel Witch didn’t manage to quite scratch the same itch for me.
Rebel Witch is very fast paced, which makes for a fun and quick read, but conversely, I was disappointed at how fast literally everything happens in the novel. Problems are introduced, swiftly dealt with, and characters quickly move on to the next issue, which is dealt with in the same repeating manner. This pattern made it hard for me to feel a lot of tension because I knew even if things were dire, a solution would be found sooner rather than later.
I also struggled with the simplicity of the story in juxtaposition to the often brutal things that happened to characters. Characters are tortured, starved, shot, whipped, and more, but the dialogue, exchanges between Rune and Gideon, and the ending of the story are quite saccharine. Swinging from one of these extremes to the other was a bit off putting to me, like the novel couldn’t quite decide what it wanted to be, a light fantasy young adult novel or a dark and edgy adult fantasy novel. It’s hard to go from a character being killed to waxing poetic about the power of love being used to create a new world.
To make matters worse, one of my favorite characters, the villainous witch queen Cressida, seemed like a watered down version of herself. Though the character obviously still has some teeth, they feel like baby teeth. She wasn’t very creative with her plans or methods of torment and therefore, not believable as The Big Bad. For someone who is supposed to be one of the most fearsome and terrifying witches of all time, she felt like a short sighted high schooler who was more worried about her ex boyfriend and what he was doing with another girl than world domination. I couldn’t help but to find this lack of nuance in both her plans and personality disappointing.
“Rune wanted Cressida on a throne like she wanted a hole in her chest. The girl was vile. A cold-blooded murderess. But when compared to the alternative—a society that wanted to tie girls like Rune up by the ankles, slit their throats, and watch the blood drain from their bodies—Cressida Roseblood was the lesser of two evils. Because under the rule of a witch queen, at least witches would be safe.”
The dynamic between Rune and Cressida was really interesting to me in Heartless Hunter, but most of that complexity is gone. I had hoped that in Rebel Witch, Cressida would make Rune her student or maybe even her heir, forcing Rune to cast terrible spells or something similar in order to prevent the people she loved from being harmed. But that kind of mental game playing is completely absent and the book takes more of a plain good versus evil stance. Some readers may find the lack of moral complexity dissatisfying, but others might not have a problem with it.
“I’m not a girl to you, am I? I’m a witch, and always will be. Something to be hated and hunted down. Not cherished or protected. Not loved.”
Similarly, the relationship between Gideon and Rune also didn’t work as well for me as in the first novel. Rebel Witch doesn’t quite capture that same magic, despite pushing the enemies part of the enemies-to-lovers angle once more. This feels more contrived than natural, as the two are so clearly hung up on one another. It felt a little ridiculous to even entertain that they could kill one another for even a minute. All of the continued miscommunications and misunderstandings between them also made it even harder for me to sympathize with the two because it was so frustrating.
As for the big plot twist, I did see it coming, which isn’t a bad thing, as it means it was planned. However, I’ve really gotten a bit bored of the whole View Spoiler », so I was discouraged to see Rebel Witch go in that direction. Personally, I think the characters were interesting enough on their own without resorting to that tried and true trope.
My favorite part of Rebel Witch for me was to see the realization of a world ruled by witches. Even though they haven’t quite completely won the battle to destroy the New Republic, and to restore the Witch Queen rule, the witches are firmly in power once more, casting spells left and right. I really enjoyed seeing this in action, as in the first novel, witches were in hiding and feared casting at all costs, which left telling scars on their body.
However, that being said, I was dismayed that one of the coolest rules of the magic system was so easily circumvented. In this world, witches can’t use the blood of others for spellcasting without permission, lest they become corrupted, but Rune easily circumvents this rule at her very first time of need. It is explained simply as her magic knew the difference between her murdering someone to use as a spell and self defense. That seems like such a huge stretch to me and is far less interesting than if she had actually become corrupted. But anyways, one of the most important parts of fantasy novels is having a cost for magic, so it’s a pet peeve of mine when these laws are thrown out the window for the sake of giving a protagonist plot armor.
Ultimately, Rebel Witch felt like a rushed follow up to me, lacking much of the magic of the first book in the series, Heartless Hunter. Though Heartless Hunter set up for an exciting sequel, it failed to deliver for me and felt like a lot of wasted potential. Many readers may be satisfied with the wholly happy ending, but I wanted a little bit more of a mixed bag for such a violent world.
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