I've read a couple of witchy books this spooky season. Some were good, and some were not so good. This is one of the good ones. Maybe the best one.

(The other contender for the top spot would be Hex and the City by Kate Johnson. But that was a mad-cap rom-com with the craziest plot and characters so honestly couldn't be more different in vibes to this one which is why you can't really compare them. I loved both but for very different reasons.)

This one is a blend of history and fantasy, set in Germany in the late 1500s. The witch hunters are called hexenjägers as you might have noticed from the blurb and it's a take on the Trier Witch Trials which, unfortunately, were all too real.

I had an absolute blast with this one. It's fast-paced and action-packed which I love. It had great, realistic and sympathetic characters, amazing world-building, a fantastic villain and really high stakes (this may or may not be a pun).

If your main enjoyment in books is the romance part - it has that too! Enemies to lovers would be the trope although it's not long until our pairing realises they might not exactly be on opposite sides as they initially assumed because Otto is a man with a plan, working undercover within the hunters to avenge his mother.

I really enjoyed the romance aspect and it really helped drive the plot, although as I've already mentioned, the plot is very action-packed and page-tuner-y anyway! I would only say the switch from enemies to lovers was a little too sudden for me personally. One minute she's fighting like a hellcat next minute she's winking at him. It seemed a little abrupt for this slow-burn fanatic but in the end, I loved the romance that blossomed so it's all good.

Sidenote: I don't know what it is with publishers consistently listing books that read as Adult as YA...but this is another example of that. It has on-page sex and violence and it's a book for adult readers.

Thank you to Sourcebooks for this Advanced Reader Copy in exchange for my honest review.
4 stars ★★★★