Angie Cox's Reviews > Heartless Hunter

3.5 ⭐️ A fast-paced romantasy set within an intriguing world.


***This review contains spoilers***


"It's not the times you don't need saving that I'm worried about. It's the one time you'll need it, and there will be no one to do it."


WHAT TO EXPECT:
✨ forbidden romance
✨ witch x witch hunter
✨ enemies to lovers
✨ insta-lust
✨ best friend’s brother
✨ fake courting / dating
✨ he courts her because he suspects she's a witch
✨ she dates him for information to help free a witch prisoner
✨ brothers love triangle
✨ loss of virginity
✨ size difference
✨ .5/5🌶️ (brief, not explicit)
✨ high stakes
✨ cliffhanger
✨ 3rd person / dual POV
✨ TW: sexual abuse/cohesion (past), sexual trauma, physical abuse, murder, death of loved one, grief

This book is marketed for a younger YA audience (ages 13-18). However, I think age 16+ is better since there are non-explicit sex scenes, violence/gore, and heavier topics.


My Thoughts:

I’m torn with giving this 4 stars or 3 stars because I enjoyed the overall story and had a good time reading. I would definitely recommend it to the right audience. However, while there are things I liked about this story, I was disappointed by other things, so let's get into it.

What I liked:

I was impressed with the world building and truly loved the magic system! I haven't read a story with witches quite like these, so I found this aspect to be unique and captivating. Everything from the witches backstory before the revolution to how they use magic was so interesting and was explained so well. I never felt overwhelmed with information.

The author paints a very vivid picture and the writing was straight forward so it was easy to follow along and imagine the story in my mind. I honestly couldn't put it down (I finished it in 5 hours).

The angst had me in a chokehold. I'm a sucker for angst in romance because it usually means the stakes are high and there's loads of drama, and that's definitely the case between Rune and Gideon (and Alex). There were a lot of moments where it felt like my heart was getting strangled from the angst, and I'll be honest, I loved it. lol


What I was disappointed in:

The story and plot twists/reveals were so predictable that I thought about DNFing since I knew what would happen. I'm not going to lie, this part was a bummer for me because I truly LOVE this world and the story, but when an author writes in a way that makes it SO obvious what's going to happen, I lose the will to keep reading. I mean, hello, I also want to be surprised along with the characters. At 27% I wrote down my guess for the big reveal, and I was right. There was ONE thing that shook me to my core, but it was an action instead of a reveal.

The characters weren’t bad and I liked a lot about them. However, they definitely could have been stronger. Rune and Gideon had some good development. I understood their backgrounds, their actions, and the things that drive them. Even though both are on opposing sides, they are similar in the sense they struggle with grief and guilt.

But there were a lot of things they did or said about the other that seemed to contradict our initial understanding of them.

For example, Rune is supposed to be a strong, cunning woman who makes in-depth plans to help free witch prisoners. She's supposed to be level-headed, but she sometimes acted like a bumbling idiot and gets caught up in the moment when she's around Gideon. There's also the time Gideon (who Rune knows is fake dating her to prove she's a witch) makes a comment to his comrades that she means nothing to him, and Rune has a breakdown over it. I get this is supposed to be a vulnerable moment and show how much she's let herself care, but still, it didn't sit right. I also wish we actually got some badass moments with her doing something besides trying to flirt with and seduce Gideon. And another thing, how did Rune not know Alex was in love with her? Is she that daft??? Again, I thought she was supposed to be smart.

And as for Gideon, in the beginning his inner thoughts are about how Rune is just a shallow girl and just like all the other socialites, but then later he admits to basically wanting her from the moment he met her but resisted since his brother was in love with her first. Like, what? Which is it? Did you always like or dislike her from the beginning?

Also, Gideon is supposed to be the equivalent of a detective, and yet somehow he doesn't connect the most obvious dots - like the silver ring belonging to his brother or the fact Alex wants him to bet his prison access coin during a game of cards. It's like he was written to be obtuse but only at certain moments when it was right for the story.

While I find the dynamic between Rune and Gideon intriguing and deliciously tense, I don’t know if I quite believe their ‘love’. I get they were vulnerable with each other but they beliefs are just so fundamentally different and they’re both aware the other is dating them for the wrong reasons, so when they start getting feelings, I wasn’t really convinced. They just seemed horny and dumb for continuing the charade, especially when Rune legit got nothing out of it. She needed info on how to break out a witch from prison and she got absolutely no info about it from dating Gideon. So what was the point? It seemed like she was just deluding herself into thinking it was a good idea since, I don't know, he got her hot and bothered?

Harrow and the whole “you have to sleep with her to find out if she has cutting scars” was weird. I get Gideon needed to see Rune naked to make sure she didn’t have any scars anywhere, but Harrow was sooooo pushy that it came off as weird and suspicious. She’s also just Gideon’s informant, not really a best friend so her insistence on this matter seemed inappropriate. There’s also the fact Harrow appeared out of nowhere during the raid on that print shop which made me even more suspicious of her but nothing came of it. But I feel like there’s more to her character that we’ll learn about in the next book.


***MASSIVE SPOILER AHEAD***

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WTF Alex. I cannot and do not believe that Alex, who knows exactly what Gideon and his entire family went through, would not only let Cressida go, but lie about it! I don't care how nice you are, you don't let your brother's r*pist and sister/parent's murderer go. And if you do, then honestly fuck you. Alex's not killing her was selfish and ultimately damns the people he loves the most.



Overall, it was a fast read and I was entertained. The ending was intense and that cliffhanger left me very eager to know what happens next, BUT I'm not sure I'll pick up the next book. I really just don't know if I can read book 2 if it's as predictable as this one. Maybe I'll read a summary.


Thank you Netgalley for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review! As always, all opinions are my own.