Book Review: To Hunt a Demon King by Madeleine Eliot

Rating: ★★★
Audience: Fantasy Romance
Length: 287 pages
Author: Madeleine Eliot
Publisher: Self Published
Release Date: May 1st, 2023
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

Little Red Riding Hood meets spicy romantasy in this witchy retelling of a classic fairy tale.

Elara has only one goal in her life: to convince her mother to treat her like the fully grown witch she is and let her attend a Coven meeting. But on her twenty-fifth birthday, Elara discovers that her mother had good reasons for keeping her away from the Coven and her grandmother, its unfeeling Crone.

Now forced to run for her life to hide a magic she shouldn’t possess, Elara is told to find the wicked Demon King and claim his protection. But when she runs into a handsome hunter and his wolf in the forest, her journey takes on a dimension she never expected.

CONFLICTED.

I really wanted to LOVE this and I did enjoy a lot of it. There were a few things though that are holding me back and writing this review is going to help me figure it out.

The Little Red Riding Hood vibes are perfectly there. It was a fun retelling in those aspects. Elara comes off pretty naive and bugged me sometimes, but she does have the FMC starting point I often see in fantasy books. I can see her rise in power over the series.

I was mostly into the romance. I wanted a slower burn though. When Elara mentioned herself that it’s been a week and they already slept together I was like, yeah girl too fast for me. From reluctant allies/strangers to lovers would have worked better it would have been drawn out a bit more. And then it went past my personal line of smut over plot and I was ready to be finished in the second half.

It does read super fast. And I did like the world building aspects and am kind of curious about the way the magic systems work and more of Elara’s past. I have theories and thoughts and am still deciding on reading book two.

Overall audience notes: