Hunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse Duet)

AN INSTANT NYT & USA TODAY BESTSELLER!

The conclusion to the Cat and Mouse Duet is here...

“If she were to die… the world would die with her.”
The worst Adeline Reilly expected for her life were a few unholy ghosts haunting the hallways of Parsons Manor, not falling in love with her stalker and ending up in the clutches of a trafficking ring.
Trapped in a house used to groom women for the elite, she faces the biggest fight of her life—survive the Culling and escape. But that’s not so easy when watchful eyes are determined to see her fail. However, Adeline may have an unlikely ally, who just might be the key to her getting out alive.
But trusting them is a risk that could cost her everything.
Meanwhile, Zade will stop at nothing until Adeline is safe in his arms again, even if he must burn the world to find her. Hunting his little mouse is what he’s best at, but who she’ll be when he finds her is a battle that he doesn’t know he can win.
It won’t be the test of time they must survive, but the memories of who they once were.

H. D. Carlton is a New York Times, USA Today, and internationally bestselling author. Her books have been translated into 25 languages with over 12 million copies sold worldwide. She lives in Oregon with her husband, two dogs, cat, and Bigfoot. 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.

Hunting Adeline by H.D. Carlton is the second book in the 'Cat and Mouse Duet' and continues the dark, intense story of Adeline Reilly and Zade Meadows. The book begins after the shocking ending of Haunting Adeline, where Adeline is kidnapped and taken away from the life she knew. While the first book focused on the dangerous and obsessive relationship between Adeline and Zade, this sequel becomes much darker as it explores captivity, trauma, revenge, and survival. It is a disturbing story, filled with violence and emotional pain, but at its center is Adeline’s fight to stay alive and reclaim herself.

Adeline is taken by a human trafficking organization and forced into a world of cruelty where women are treated as products to be sold and controlled. She is no longer in her home, no longer surrounded by familiar things, and no longer able to pretend that danger is only something she writes about in her novels. The horror she faces is real and constant. Her captors try to break her physically and mentally, using fear, violence, and humiliation to strip away her identity. Adeline suffers deeply, and the book does not present her captivity as something simple or easy to overcome. She is terrified, angry, and traumatized, but she refuses to let the people holding her completely destroy who she is.

During this part of the story, Adeline’s inner strength becomes one of the most important elements. She is not powerful in the same way Zade is, and she cannot always fight back directly, but she survives by holding on to her mind, her memories, and her will. She watches, learns, and waits for any chance to escape. The experience changes her, but it does not erase her. Even when she is at her weakest, there is still a part of her that refuses to surrender. Her journey through captivity is painful because it shows how trauma can affect a person’s sense of safety, body, and identity, but it also shows that survival itself can be an act of resistance.

Zade, meanwhile, is devastated by Adeline’s disappearance. He is already a man driven by obsession, violence, and a personal mission to destroy human traffickers, but losing Adeline pushes him into an even darker place. He uses all his resources, intelligence, and brutality to search for her. Zade is not a traditional hero; he is dangerous, controlling, and morally complex. However, his hatred for traffickers and abusers is absolute, and his love for Adeline makes his search desperate. He blames himself for not protecting her and becomes consumed by the need to find her before it is too late.

The novel follows both Adeline’s suffering and Zade’s hunt. This creates a tense contrast between the victim trapped inside the system and the predator moving through the outside world to tear that system apart. Zade’s work against trafficking has always been central to his character, but in this book, it becomes deeply personal. Every lead, every enemy, and every act of violence brings him closer to Adeline. His grief and rage make him even more ruthless, and the reader sees how far he is willing to go for the woman he loves.

When Adeline is eventually found, the story does not simply return to romance as if nothing happened. Her rescue is only the beginning of another difficult journey. She has survived, but she is not the same person she was before. She must deal with trauma, fear, anger, and the memories of what was done to her. She struggles with feeling broken and with the way her body and mind react after captivity. This part of the book focuses on healing, but the healing is messy and painful. Adeline cannot instantly become strong again, and she cannot simply forget what happened. She has to learn how to exist in the world again.

Zade wants to help her, but his love is intense and complicated. Their relationship has always been dark, obsessive, and full of power struggles, and after Adeline’s trauma, it becomes even more emotionally charged. Zade wants revenge on everyone who hurt her, but Adeline also needs to regain control for herself. She does not want to remain only a victim or be treated as something fragile. Part of her healing comes from finding her anger and turning it into strength. She wants the people who hurt her to suffer, but more importantly, she wants to feel powerful again.

Revenge becomes a major part of the second half of the novel. Zade and Adeline go after the people involved in her kidnapping and abuse. For Zade, revenge is natural, almost instinctive. For Adeline, it becomes a way to confront the fear that was forced into her. The book presents vengeance as dark and violent, but within the world of the story, it is also tied to Adeline’s recovery. She is no longer only running from what happened; she is facing it. This does not erase her pain, but it helps her reclaim a sense of agency.

The relationship between Adeline and Zade remains central throughout the novel. Their bond is not gentle or conventional. It is built on obsession, desire, danger, and a shared darkness. Some readers may find their relationship troubling because of Zade’s controlling nature and the extreme themes in the story. But within the novel, Adeline and Zade are drawn to each other because they both understand darkness in different ways. Zade sees Adeline not as ruined, but as fierce and worthy. Adeline, despite everything, finds safety in him because his violence is directed at the monsters who hurt her.

By the end of *Hunting Adeline*, Adeline has not magically recovered, but she has changed into someone harder, more aware, and more determined. She has endured terrible suffering and come out of it with scars, but also with a deeper understanding of her own strength. Zade also completes his mission of finding her and punishing those responsible, though his war against evil is part of who he is and never truly feels finished. The ending gives their relationship a sense of dark closure, showing them bound together by love, trauma, and vengeance.

Hunting Adeline is a dark and disturbing story about surviving the worst kinds of cruelty and fighting to take back power afterward. It is not a light romance, and it contains heavy themes that may be upsetting for many readers. The book focuses on trauma, revenge, obsession, and the bond between two damaged people who love each other in a dangerous and unconventional way. At its heart, the novel is about Adeline’s survival and transformation, showing that even after being hunted and broken down, she can rise again and become someone her captors could not destroy.