Heartless Hunter

Give me a clever female protagonist, a forbidden romance, a riveting high-stakes plot, and I’ll ask for nothing else—apart from the sequel. Kristen Ciccarelli gives us all of this and more in this tantalizing cat-and-mouse game of deception.

Rune is a young witch living in a world that would see her kind purged. Gideon is a deadly witch-hunter who will stop at nothing to see this purge through. To keep herself alive, Rune must con Gideon into a courtship with her, and keep from falling for the lie herself.

By day, Rune plays the part of socialite, orchestrating lunches and balls with the New Republic’s high society, a group of witch-hating elite. By night, she is the “Crimson Moth,” a vigilante saving witches from their hunters. As Gideon and his hunters encroach on her, she sets out to throw them off her scent by courting him. Little does she know that Gideon has a plan of his own, aiming to court her until she reveals her true identity. Thus begins a dance of evasion and pursuit, as they keep each other’s worst enemy—and greatest love—closer than is safe.

An equally exciting and emotionally compelling story about love and sacrifice, this book will have you flipping the pages and leave you open-mouthed and full of feelings. Best of luck sorting them out!

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?