Rampant

Rampant by Diana Peterfreund

Forget everything you ever knew about unicorns...

Real unicorns are venomous, man-eating monsters with huge fangs and razor-sharp horns. Fortunately, they've been extinct for a hundred and fifty years.

Or not.

Astrid had always scoffed at her eccentric mother's stories about killer unicorns. But when one of the monsters attacks her boyfriend—thereby ruining any chance of him taking her to the prom—Astrid finds herself headed to Rome to train as a unicorn hunter at the ancient cloisters the hunters have used for centuries.

However, at the cloisters all is not what it seems. Outside, the unicorns wait to attack. And within, Astrid faces other, unexpected threats: from the crumbling, bone-covered walls that vibrate with a terrible power to the hidden agendas of her fellow hunters to—perhaps most dangerously of all—her growing attraction to a handsome art student ... an attraction that could jeopardize everything. -Plot summary borrowed from Goodreads

So, this is book one in the Killer Unicorns trilogy. Yup. Killer unicorns. That almost put me off the series, and I'm really glad it didn't. This book is a ton of fun, with a diverse and engaging cast of characters led by one kick-ass unicorn hunter. The mythology is fascinating, the action exciting and tense, and Peterfreund even raises issues of gender, environment, and violence without ever seeming boring or preachy. Astrid is one of my new favorite heroines, and happily the second book (Rampant) is out and the third is on the way.