Review // Hunting Adeline by H.D. Carlton

I don’t care if I need to set this world on fire until there’s no one left but you and me. The world will burn around us, and I’ll gladly live in chaos with you as long as the only person that is a danger to you is me.

Hunting Adeline by H.D. Carlton

Rating -
Book Two of the Cat and Mouse duet
Genre/Trope - Dark Romance / stalker / vigilante
Release - January 28, 2022
POV - Dual 1st person
Heat - explicit scenes
Source - Kindle Unlimited
Length - 531 pages

The Diamond

Death walks alongside me,
But the reaper is no match for me.
I'm trapped in a world full of monsters dressed as men, and those who aren't as they seem.
They won't keep me forever.
I no longer recognize the person I've become,
And I'm fighting to find my way back to the beast who hunts me in the night.
They call me a diamond,
But they've only created an angel of death.

The Hunter

I was born a predator,
With ruthlessness ingrained in my bones.
When what's mine is stolen from me in the night,
Like a diamond hidden within a fortress,
I find that I can no longer contain the beast.
Blood will paint the ground as I tear apart this world to find her.
And bring her back to where she belongs.
No one will escape my wrath,
Especially not those who have betrayed me.

Don't forget to check out the first book of the duet:

I really had to suspend my belief for this one. Some things just didn't make sense in a realistic sense, but I'll tell you this: I was entertained!!

Adeline was kidnapped and being trained to be sold. I really enjoyed this part of the story. She went through so much pain and torture and it all fundamentally changed her. I kept thinking "Will she see Zade in a different light?" She gave Zade such a hard time for everything he did to eradicate the world from abusive scum, but at the same time she celebrated the fact that he would be killing everyone who hurt her while they were apart. Girl was too funny, for sure.

I know there are people who find the topics discussed in this duet as terribly dark and horrific. If that's what you think, you should definitely not read Deliverance for Amelia by Bonny Capps or The Life of Anna series by Marissa Honeycutt—those are truly dark and horrific. This duet was pretty mild in comparison, but it did gut me in places. I cringed, gasped and my eyes did bug out for some scenes. However, I also enjoyed myself a ton.

My biggest issue with this story was Adeline. While I lived in delusional-ville for the majority of this story, I couldn't let the delusion take me too far. Was I supposed to believe that Adeline became fully capable after a couple of months of training? Seriously? And every time she mentioned "we" did this in order to fool or trap the bad guys, I laughed. I know she was using the "we" figuratively, but there was no "we". She wasn't hacking anything. She wasn't building bombs or placing them to detonate. She wasn't tracking or really doing a damn thing.

H. D. Carlton is an International and USA Today Bestselling author. She lives in Ohio with her partner, two dogs, and cat. When she's not bathing in the tears of her readers, she's watching paranormal shows and wishing she was a mermaid. Her favorite characters are of the morally gray variety and believes that everyone should check their sanity at the door before diving into her stories.

Visit https://hdcarlton.com for more information