"Stoneheart Hunt" by Abby D. Jones, with Martin Brodde

This book is one wild ride.  It's a wronged-woman-seeks-vengeance western crossed with a post-apocalyptic bounty hunter sci-fi story.  Hannie Caulder meets Mad Max, but as a Snow White retelling.  With motorcycles and poisonous apples and lots of guns.

Psyche is the lone survivor of a vicious biker gang raid on the remote gunsmithing business where she worked.  Raped and left to die, she clings to life long enough to get rescued by a bounty hunter just seeking fuel at her outpost.

Sul wonders if it would have been kinder to let Psyche die.  But he nurses her back to life, binds her wounds, and helps her take revenge on the men who brutalized her.  Then Sul and Psyche part ways, seemingly for good.

Eight years later, their paths cross again.  Psyche's daughter Rune is the target of a mysterious woman named Volo Pine who thinks Rune is the key to her greatest desire: immortal beauty.  Pine hires a bounty hunter to fetch her Rune's heart, but that bounty hunter happens to be Sul.  Once again, Psyche and Sul must team up to stop a vile enemy that seeks only to ruin and destroy.

I read this book in a single day.  It sucked me in and held me fast until I'd chowed my way to the very satisfying conclusion.  I was hoping to like it, since I'm friends with Abby Jones, but I wasn't expecting to love it so much!  I actually got to read a very early version of this story several years ago, and seeing how it's bloomed into a full and rich novel was so wonderful!  I especially loved Mr. and Mrs. Cricket, a charming elderly couple who helped Psyche and Rune so, so much.

Particularly Good Bits: 

Sometimes if you can't get a hug, giving one is enough, Psyche thought (p. 40).

"I think it's a moral duty to be as happy as a body can, don't you?" (p. 110).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-16 for memories of rape, lots of violence, and some really creepy magic stuff.

This is my sixth book read off my TBR shelves for #TheUnreadShelfProject2022.