Book Review: The Hunter’s Gambit by Ciel Pierlot

Title: The Hunter’s Gambit
Author: Ciel Peirlot
Publisher: Angry Robot
Publication Date: June 25, 2024
ISBN: 9781915998170

Synopsis:
Vampires have always fascinated Kazan Korvic, so much so that she’s made it her life’s work to craft weapons designed solely to kill them. But when she is attacked and captured by an entire clan, Kazan’s fascination turns ferocious.

In their Citadel, Kazan is forced to attend the Vampire Court where she must act as their Queen. She is told that she will be waited-and-doted upon, until the end of her reign in three days’ time. Then, an extravagant and lavish feast will be held… where the vampires will consume their newly crowned Queen.

Desperate and afraid, Kazan finds no allies in the castle except for a pair of distractingly alluring vampires who seem sympathetic to her plight. But as she devises her escape plan, she comes to realise that she is not the only one who is trapped, and no one is prepared for how far she’s willing to go to survive…

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The Hunter’s Gambit is a little out of my wheelhouse in terms of over arching topic, and it definitely wasn’t the book for me. With vampires as the central monster, I was hoping that I’d be sucked (pun intended) into a new genre and open up a world of new novels. Alas, this one fell incredibly short of expectation, and while I hate to leave a bad review, I just can’t stomach how poor this book was overall.

An interesting enough concept, Kazan—a human—is captured by vampires who, in a ritualistic ceremony crown her queen in an exercise to maintain the magic that holds their Citadel together. They taunt her and perform a series of rituals to demoralize and dehumanize her, at the end of which they will kill and eat her.

There’s potential for this to be a unique and interesting story line, but the characters were two dimensional and unbelievable, the vapid dialogue, and the plot falling very flat leads to a wholly unsatisfying and very disagreeable story overall. It’s bland, slow, and felt wholly uneventful. The main female character is so morally grey, there really are no redeeming qualities about her that make her appealing. The main love interests are described as beautiful, but there is nothing about their personalities that are appealing and no fire or spark between them. I found myself hoping the vampires would eat Kazan in the end, just to get rid of her and spare us from the rest of the story. It’s also categorized as a romantasy, but there is no presence of romance to be found, only lust.

There really are no redeeming qualities to this one, unfortunately, other than the potential, but then again, that was lost so it doesn’t really count.

I’d bid you happy reading, but in this case, I’d just advise a hard.