Book Review: Heartless Hunter by Kristen Ciccarelli

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A witch falling for the witch-hunter who would burn her if he knew what she was: that’s not a premise, that’s a dare. Heartless Hunter walked up to my TBR with the single most combustible enemies-to-lovers setup of the year, and I cleared my evening for it.

The spoiler-free setup: Rune is a socialite by day and the Crimson Moth by night — a Scarlet-Pimpernel-style rescuer smuggling witches out of a revolution that’s made her kind illegal. To protect her cover, she courts Gideon Sharpe, the revolution’s most decorated witch-hunter, who is courting her right back because he suspects exactly what she is. Both of them are lying. Both of them are good at it. You see the problem.

What I Loved About Heartless Hunter by Kristen Ciccarelli

The premise machinery is genuinely great. Every dance, every dinner, every polite conversation is a knife fight in disguise, because each of them is hunting the other — and a really solid enemies-to-lovers arc needs exactly that constant, structural reason for the tension. Ciccarelli also keeps the pages turning: this is a fast, clean read with a well-run rotation of near-misses and reveals, and the witchy Regency-adjacent world is easy to sink into.

It’s also refreshingly gentle on the spice front — this one’s YA-leaning, so it’s a book you can hand to the romantasy-curious teenager in your life (or read yourself when you want the tension without the heat).

What I Didn’t Love About Heartless Hunter

For all that combustible setup, the emotion, stakes, and action stay closer to the surface than I wanted. The book keeps flirting with its own darkest questions — what these two would actually sacrifice, what it costs to love your enemy for real — and then politely stepping back from the ledge. The premise promises an inferno; the book delivers a well-tended fireplace. Cozy! Warm! But I kept waiting for it to burn something down.

Final Thoughts on Heartless Hunter by Kristen Ciccarelli

My final score: 3 out of 5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Spice rating: 1 out of 5 🌶️

Do I recommend this book? 👍 Yes — especially for YA romantasy readers.

A solid, likable enemies-to-lovers read that plays it safer than its own idea — I’ll be reading the sequel hoping it strikes the match. For witchy romantasy with more bite, my Phantasma review is right this way, and everything I’ve rated lives on the book reviews shelf.

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And if you like your trials with higher stakes and older heroines: My romantasy novel The Ash Trials is on Kindle Unlimited: deadly trials, a slow-burn romance, and a heroine with everything to prove. If tonight’s the night you stay up too late with a book, I’d love it to be mine.