Book Review

Mating the Huntress by Talia Hibbert

It’s been a bad week(s) for a lot of women. Personally, I’ve been vacillating between the kind of rage where I feel like wasps should come out of my mouth in a swarm, and the sort of despair that leaves you noodle-limp. It’s a combination of anger and exhaustion. I know that I am not alone.

Then I picked up Mating the Huntress by Talia Hibbert, and goddamnit, this novella had everything my brain needed. It features

  1. A supernaturally powerful Huntress heroine who makes no apologies for her desire to kick ass.
  2. A hero who finds her bloodthirsty-ness super fucking hot and is like, “I love when you want to murder people. You’re so sexy. Also, I bought cupcakes.”
  3. CUPCAKES.
  4. Really hot, aggressive joyful sex.
  5. CUPCAKES.
  6. Rapist who get their faces eaten off.

Feel free to stop reading the review here and just buy this book because it’s amazing. If you still need convincing, here we go.

Chastity Adofo is part of a supernaturally powered family of women who are born to hunt and kill werewolves. Unlike her sisters, she’s never been allowed to act on her urge to go out into the woods and slay some monsters; an oracle predicted at her birth that the first Were she hunted would rip her heart out. So Chastity’s family has kept her on the sidelines. She’s been running the coffee house/ bakery she owns and that’s where she meets Luke, one of her customers.

Luke is a werewolf and he knows that Chastity is his fated mate. The problem is, his social skills are kind of lacking so he’s been lurking around the coffee house trying to figure out how exactly to ask her out. Luke doesn’t know Chastity is a Huntress.

Chastity, however, knows Luke is a werewolf and that he’s clearly into her. So she takes this as her golden opportunity to prove to her family that she can be a huntress, too. She’ll go on a date with him, go back to his place, decapitate him, and then show Mom his severed head and be all like, “See I told you I could!” So while Luke is picking out Chastity’s favorite type of cupcakes and wondering if the blanket on his couch is soft enough for his beloved, she’s sharpening her knives.

This set-up is amazing and it made me so happy. I was all like:

Click to see Elyse RN

A little girl at some kind of sportsing event, her face already stained blue, rips off a hunk of cotton candy and snarfs it. Her eyes go wide and she grins. This kid is JACKED UP ON SUGAR.

So of course the conflict comes from the fact that Chastity and Luke are Fated Mates and also her family is sworn to kill his kind. Unlike a lot of Fated Mates books I’ve read, Luke feels no overwhelming compulsion to protect Chastity from all potential Baddies. He’s super cool with her needing to run through the forest murdering shit.

Click for spoilers
Later we get a distinction between Weres like Luke and Rabids, which explains why the Huntresses haven’t just been killing innocent people.
.

He thinks Chastity’s need for blood is pretty hot and we have some fighting-and-fucking and enthusiastic, aggressive sexy times.

Luke is less “let me protect you from everything because I’m a Were grrrr” alpha hero and more “Do you want me to work on the bloodstain in your favorite jeans, baby?” It’s so refreshing.

We also have this passage where Chastity and Luke are discussing his (potentially) beastly nature:

She stiffened, refusing to move–and he certainly wasn’t going to drag her. “Who,” she gritted out, “did you eat?”

He sighed. “A few rapists. It was a long time ago. We all make mistakes, etcetera, etcetera. Okay?”

“Why did you have to eat them?” she demanded, though she didn’t exactly look horrified. And she wasn’t pushing him away, either.

“I didn’t eat them so much as enthusiastically kill them with my mouth. Subtle distinction. Can we talk about this later?”

Rapists being enthusiastically chewed to death.

My name is Elyse, and I support this message.

Fuck yeah

Travis from Clueless says "two enthusastic thumbs up!"

Overall this book was a delight. It locked on to my need for female rage, for men to support that rage, and for cupcakes, and it was funny. I really hope Chastity’s sisters get books too because I am 1000% here for female Huntress badassery. I highly recommend you do yourself a favor and download this book.

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Mating the Huntress by Talia Hibbert

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  1. Qualisign says:

    Kindle Unlimited, comes out tomorrow. FTW!!! Thank you Elyse!

  2. Steffi says:

    I never read shifter romances precisely because of the weird and toxic “We are fated and you don’t have a say in it also I am now overprotective because I have _claimed_ you and thus you are mine”-dynamic, so I may just have to pick this one up. It sounds delightful.

  3. LaurieF says:

    Ordered! Thanks Elyse.

  4. Cristie says:

    Pre-ordered. This sounds amazing! Oh how I wish it was out already though so could read about rapists being chewed up enthusiastically.

  5. I’m going to be honest that your list sold me, but I read the whole thing anyway. 😉 I need exactly this kind of read right now. One-click pre-order happening now. Thanks, Elyse!

  6. Darlynne says:

    Just what I needed. Thank you, Elyse.

  7. Michelle says:

    It is so so awesome that the heroine is not defanged and shown up by the hero! I’m so so sick of seeing that.

  8. Kathy says:

    Trust Talia to come up with exactly the sort of book that’s needed right now. I’m Team Talia all the way, so even though I hate the idea of this bloody werewolf stuff, I’ve pre-ordered it. I love her hot beta men to pieces, and “may I iron your jeans?” is such a thing they do. I am SO excited!

  9. Maureen says:

    Oh-I am IN!!

    “I didn’t eat them so much as enthusiastically kill them with my mouth.”

    This is hilarious!

  10. Monique Daoust says:

    You better be right, because I preordered it! Thanks for the uplifting review!

  11. Caro says:

    I spotted this book on a rec list during the week and I pre-ordered it. Then with the week that was in it, I forgot I’d pre-ordered it and went to order it again when I read this post, only for amazon to tell me that I’d already bought it so I opened the Kindle app on my phone but couldn’t find it. Until I realised it was pre-ordered. Yeah. That’s where my head is at these days.

    Anyway, between the jigs and the reels, the point of this story is that it’s now thirteen minutes past midnight GMT on October 1st, and this book is not yet in my Kindle app. I feel aggrieved. Though it’s probably just as well it’s not there yet because I would start reading it and that would not work out in my favour in a couple of hours when I have to deal with the builder working on the house right now.

  12. Dorothea says:

    I read the title as “Hunting the Mattress,” which would make a much slower-paced plot, I should think. 🙂

  13. Sarahjane Cottrell says:

    Yes, please, and thank you!

  14. chacha1 says:

    Okay, I bought that.

  15. Andi says:

    “Enthusiastically killed them with my mouth.” Aaaaaand one-clicked.

  16. ClaireC says:

    If the list didn’t convince me, “enthusiastically killed them with my mouth” definitely did!! One-clicked and can’t wait to read.

    Side note – I know the family and the kid in that first gif!

  17. Robyn says:

    Read this in one sitting tonight. PNR is not normally my bag, but man, this was just what I needed. I adore Talia Hibbert’s lovesick dudes. Sigh…

  18. filkferengi says:

    This story was lots of fun, but reads like the novella that later gets expanded into a full-on novel. I hope so. I’d love to read lots more in this world, and to see both their families and their relationship get some more development, the abilities get more back story, etc. This story needs at least 200-300 more pages.

  19. Anony Miss says:

    Just finished it, thank you Kindle Unlimited and Elyse!! That was awesome.

  20. Magenta says:

    Shapeshifters are decidedly not my cup of tea – but Talia Hibbert can do no wrong. Loved it unabashedly!

  21. Joy says:

    Ordered it. I am picturing a bunch of men on Cspan that I would like to introduce to Luke. Maybe he’ll revert to eating them also. Sigh, a girl can dream can’t she.

  22. Kate says:

    I’m not normally into paranormal romance at all, but Talia Hibbert is an automatic buy for me. And this was SO GOOD. Her description of it on Twitter as “Black British heroine with many, many knives, and werewolf hero who just wants to support her” was really all I needed.

  23. Maureen says:

    I LOVED it! @filkferengi mentions how great it would be made into a novel-I totally agree. I would read the hell out of that! I found this so clever and fun, I laughed out loud numerous times. I’m a new reader of Hibbert-now working my way through her novels, and getting a big kick out of them!

  24. Kareni says:

    I enjoyed your review, Elyse, so bought the book. I read it yesterday and quite enjoyed it. It had a fun tone.

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