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Kristen Ciccarelli

Författare till The Last Namsara

7 verk 1,417 medlemmar 43 recensioner

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Inkluderar namnet: Kristen Ciccarelli

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Verk av Kristen Ciccarelli

The Last Namsara (2017) 673 exemplar
The Caged Queen (2018) 209 exemplar
The Sky Weaver (2019) 120 exemplar
Edgewood: A Novel (2022) 76 exemplar

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A great start to this new Kristen Ciccarelli series. I loved the ending of this book, so many surprises and I cannot wait to read the next book in the series. I feel bad for Rune; she worked so hard to free everyone and nothing turned out the way she wanted it to.
 
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Shauna_Morrison | 9 andra recensioner | Mar 16, 2024 |
I absolutely loved this book. This book had me captivated from the very first page. Rune, a witch in hiding, decides to play a dangerous game when she tries to gain the affections of Gideon Sharpe, the most prolific witch hunter around, in order to glean important information about a witch who was arrested. Gideon courts Rune in order to trick her into revealing her true self as the Crimson Moth, the witch who’s been freeing the witches and killing members of the Blood Guard, but without proof he’s stuck. As the two grow closer, their feelings for one another evolve into something that feels like love. But when the truth comes to light, everything changes. With Rune’s best friend and Gideon’s brother, Alex, dead, Rune flees with Cressida, formerly Verity, to find more witches to join their cause for a new Rovelorion. And Gideon promises to find Rune and end her once and for all.

The ending of this book was so great. I genuinely had no idea where it was going and now I can’t wait for book 2 to come out.
… (mer)
 
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Lacy_007 | 9 andra recensioner | Mar 11, 2024 |
3.5 stars

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review

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.


The Crimson Moth series is a planned duology (so brace yourself for that cliffhanger) about a fantasy world where witches once ruled but two years ago, there was a revolution by the Blood Guard and the ruling three witch queen sisters were killed. Now, The New Republic has outlawed witches and the Blood Guard have hunted them to the point that very few are ever seen, identifiable by their scars cut into their bodies to supply the blood they need for their spells. Rune was sixteen when the revolution happened and forced into an impossible situation that had her surviving but drowning from guilt. She also gets a shock when, as a later bloomer, she gets her menses and it's revealed she's a witch. Knowing her survival depends on staying hidden, she uses her aristocrat lineage to pretend to be an empty headed society miss, but wanting to fight back, Rune also becomes the Crimson Moth, a vigilante that rescues captured witches and ships them away to freedom.

Gideon Sharpe.
Rune’s lip nearly curled at the name of Alex’s older brother. Devoutly loyal to the New Republic, Gideon was a ruthless, bloodthirsty witch hunter who’d sent more of Rune’s kind to the purge than any other member of the Guard.
He’d also famously helped assassinate the Sister Queens, sparking the revolution into a blaze.


The older brother of Rune's bestfriend, Alex, is Gideon a captain in the Blood Guard and helped start the revolution but killing two of the witch queens. When they were kids and Rune met him for the first time, she had a crush on him, until he was rude and dismissive to her. Now that she's eighteen and he's twenty, Rune tries to avoid him as he could be the cause of her death if he ever found out what and who she is. With chapters that alternate giving us Rune and Gideon's point-of-view, we get a good luck at Gideon's character and learn important information about his past, thoughts, and feelings. His family was poor until the queens favored his parents for their dress designs and while that should have made things better for their family, it was their downfall. Gideon catches the eye of the youngest queen, Cressida, and from there he's forced into a relationship that he initially wanted but then can't escape as she becomes murderously jealous and Gideon can't escape people knowing about his relationship with the witch queen and knows he has to stay with her for his remaining family member, Alex's, safety. Gideon has reasons to hate the witch queens and when Nicolas, the commander of the Blood Guard, lays out a way to get his revenge, he takes it.

He was a witch hunter. He suspected her. He was closing in on her even now.
And yet.


I flew through the beginning first half of this, the world-building that was starting to be laid out with Rune having to remain hidden for her survival but having two friends, Alex and Verity, a girl Rune becomes friends with after Verity tells her the story of how she's not a witch but her two sisters were and her mother turned them in, set-up magic, danger, and then intrigue when Gideon came into the picture. Verity pushes Rune to find someone to court and then marry who has access to information so they can safely rescue even more witches, but does think Gideon could be too dangerous. Alex also has tried very hard to never betray his brother and refuses to completely side with Rune against him. However, since this is romance along with fantasy, Rune has a little bit of that drawn to Gideon and tells herself and friends that she's only going to use Gideon for information. Since we get Gideon's povs too, readers also know that Gideon's friends Harrow and fellow guard Lelia, also encourage him to pretend court Rune for information, when it's found out that Rune's family business of ships helped the last witch escape. So a really great cat and mouse dynamic is set-up with Rune and Gideon trying to use each other but also ultimately developing real feelings.

The hunted had fallen for the hunter.

The second half slowed down for me some as the romance became more of the focus and it stagnated with rinse and repeat of Gideon feeling he couldn't give into his feelings for Rune because he knows his brother Alex has romantic feelings for her and Rune, rightly so, scared that Gideon would turn her in to be killed if he discovered she's a witch. There was an open-door bedroom scene but I thought the best scenes between the two was when the tension ramped up because both are trying to fight their chemistry and both have some fear, Rune getting discovered and Gideon thinking he could be getting played and wanting to protect his brother. The latter second half also brought in some love triangle that I really didn't like and lead to a component of the ending that didn't quite deliver on the desired emotional impact for me; I'm not sure that character was flushed out enough.

She was the Crimson Moth— a wanted criminal, not to mention a witch, hiding in plain sight.

The last twenty percent picked up the stagnated pace and we get a rush of movement with a reveal that some will probably guess early at, some battle, and Rune and Gideon more divided than ever. This is tagged as a YA and it has some of that feel in the beginning but by the end I'd say it was more New Adult, the open-door scene and the method of how they kill the witches might be a little gruesome for the lower end of YA (but for YA/NA I loved that Rune used her menses blood for a source of power, using that blood so she wouldn't have to cut herself and have scars signaling she was a witch). There were characters I would have liked flushed out more, The Good Commander had such an impact on Gideon's life that I really missed seeing more scenes of the two together, not to mention Gideon and Alex. As I mentioned in the beginning, this ends with a cliffhanger and while I wanted more depth in some places, I'll definitely be in line for when the second comes out as in one aspect Rune got what she wanted but it may have just put her in danger from another foe and Gideon is going to want revenge even more.
… (mer)
 
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WhiskeyintheJar | 9 andra recensioner | Mar 4, 2024 |
Like the author, I have long loved The Scarlet Pimpernel, to the point where I have to read any and all books based on the characters, even romance novels. I knew this gender flip take on Orczy's original would be filled with the same old stock tropes of big strong heroes who need a therapist more than a love interest and soft yet spunky women who are more than a match for any man, etc etc, but could I resist? Nope. I paid full price on release day.

Was I disappointed? Also nope. I could have lived without the romance, as always, and skipped the hormone-driven angst towards the end of the book, and the author's attempt to market her book as YA by describing fully grown men and women as 'boys and girls' was annoying, but overall I liked the characters and the story. The nods to the Pimpernel were also amusing, from Rune with her red-gold hair and 'all six gorgeous feet' of Gideon to Rune being possessive of her favourite book 'about a mysterious hero who risks his own life to rescue aristocrats in danger'. Although any readers expecting Sir Percy and Marguerite should be warned that The Crimson Moth is more like Marguerite as the Pimpernel falling in love with Chauvelin - which is already a thing in fan fiction, but not to my taste!

I was also a little confused by the historical setting, or lack of one. I get that this is a fantasy novel, but I was expecting the standard seventeenth century era of Matthew Hopkins, Witchfinder General, in England or the Salem witch trials in America. Instead, we get a sort of modern alternate universe that is equal parts Netflix teen drama and Bridgerton. Lots of fancy dresses and candlelight but also men taking moody showers and painfully modern dialogue. And instead of witch hunts being a way for men to punish women who step out of bounds, the 'Red Peace' is a thinly veiled take on the French Revolution. The old power of the 'Sister Queen' witches and the aristocracy was considered evil not because of their magic but because they were rich and families like Gideon's were poor:

Gideon had grown up playing on dirt floors, eating watered-down soup to last the bitter winters, feeling his clothes get tighter and more threadbare because there was no money to replace them. All while the people currently gawking at him ate off gold-rimmed plates, fed their leftovers to their fat hounds, and retired their wardrobes at the end of every season.

Well, boohoo, but there will always be someone in power who gets there by feeding on those who have less. At least the author acknowledges that the 'Red Peace' - the Revolution - solved nothing and the poor still suffer. The only abuse of actual magic in the old order, however, seems to be one of the witch queens using Gideon as a sex slave because what is a romance hero without Childhood Trauma?

Personal issues aside, this was a quick read and I was caught up in the story throughout. Rune is an eighteen year old heiress who sacrificed her own grandmother to the 'purge' of witches - bit harsh, even if she was only following gran's plan - and now works under magical disguise to rescue other witches in a bid to atone for her guilt. Gideon is the twenty year old 'witch hunter' on a personal crusade to kill all women - sorry, witches - because his family were poor tailors who enjoyed Titanic style diddley diddley dancing in the kitchen with the servants while the big mean rich women played with them like toys. The characters' ages don't quite work with the level of life experience they are burdened with, but YA demands a teenage cast, apparently. Rune needs to find out where her grandmother's friend is being held by the Blood Guard, while Gideon is determined to track down the elusive Crimson Moth. Guess what happens? Cockblocking the pair is Gideon's brother Alex, who is golden, slender and artistic where Gideon is dark, strong and angry, and also one of Rune's best friends. He's also besotted with her, but of course she doesn't notice. While the three kids are dancing around each other, a stronger, darker magic is building, and honestly, I was ready for the witch queens to make a return - but that's for the sequel, which - ehhh - I don't think I'll bother with.

A fun, fast read, but a little less conversation, a little more magic, please.
… (mer)
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AdonisGuilfoyle | 9 andra recensioner | Mar 2, 2024 |

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Statistik

Verk
7
Medlemmar
1,417
Popularitet
#18,147
Betyg
4.0
Recensioner
43
ISBN
64
Språk
5

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