I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley and am voluntarily posting a review. All opinions are my own.
The Witch and the Vampire immediately caught my eye from the title alone…and then the blurb clinched it for me. And while I don’t think it’s as bad as some reviewers say, it’s rather underwhelming.
While there’s not much to the world building, I like the general concept of witches that hunt vampires. That presents a great starting point for not just the book itself, but possible future stories. There have been so many stories where witches and vampires have been targeted individually by others, but warfare among the two is a concept I’d love to see Francesca Flores develop more.
The characters are fine. The Rapunzel vibes come in subtly through Ava’s character, with her being in the thrall of her abusive mother who is determined to keep her confined. Kaye, meanwhile, has decent motivations, having lost her mother in the vampire attack that resulted in Ava being turned. The resulting romance due to them crossing paths again is rather sweet, although the book suffered from the fact that they didn’t have a ton of depth.
On the plot side of things, there is a lot going on, so it’s not lacking in action, making it a quick read overall.
While I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I hoped I would, I expect it has to do with the fact that I’m not the target audience for the book, with the tone of the book skewing on the younger side of YA. If you go into this with that in mind, you may enjoy it more than I did.

Thank you, Netgalley and Publisher, for this Arc!

I love this cover! However, I could not get into this book!

Ava is a root witch turned vampire that has been trapped in her mother's tower for two years. Kaye is a fire witch that was friends with Ava until the night her mother was murdered, believing that ava was the murderer.
When all hell breaks loose in their town, Ava escapes only to be captured by Kaye.

So my issue with this book is the constant back and forth between, do they have any feelings for one another at all or are they reverting back to this plain "kill em" vibe. Not complex, just black and white. I had no way of understanding their prior relationship and the introduction to the story didn't give me what I needed to understand this relationship as more than 1 dimensional. And, then half-way through the book, Tristan, the third wheel to their supposed past friendship, suddenly goes from a nobody to an important meaningful character?

Ya'll know I don't write a lot of negative reviews, but this book really let me down. The synopsis as a Repunzel retelling really gave me high expectations. This just didn't show me anything in a real enough way for me to even slightly feel connected, so I'm disappointed.

Out March 21, 2023

A Sapphic Rapunzel retelling with a vampiric twist.

Ava is locked away in her house after becoming a vampire. Kaye is a Flame witch trained to hunt vampires. After Ava escapes and Kaye sets off on her trail, the two have to work together to navigate the forest and uncover a dastardly plot.

This was a unique take on a classic tale. I liked Ava and Kaye as characters, and the worldbuilding was cool to see develop. The pacing was a little slow, but it was overall an enjoyable read.

First off, thank you so much to #Netgalley, the publisher and especially the author for this ARC!

I ended up dnfing this book because I think I just wasn't a fan of the writing style. It read like it was a first draft to me; multiple grammatical errors and the phrasing made it tough to understand at times. The pacing was also very erratic. I will say, however, that I do like the base storyline and would be interested to read it if these problems were fixed!

Ava runs away from home, where her mother kept her trapped, to seek shelter from the vampire queen. Her former best friend, witch and vampire-hunter Kaye, finds her in the forest and devises a secret plan to turn her in. However, both Ava and Kaye’s plans fall apart when they learn the truth of witch-vampire history and discover feelings for each other.

This book had a really fun & interesting concept— lesbian retelling of Rapunzel with witches and vampires! Unfortunately, The Witch and the Vampire had some pacing issues that distracted from the story as a whole. I think this book could benefit from the addition of flashbacks or other time-related narrative tools to better incorporate different facets of the story. Lore and story developments were often explained away quickly through character conversations— this telling rather than showing makes the book feel rushed and unfinished.

The characters were fine. I really enjoyed Ava’s reconciliation with her nature as a vampire throughout the novel, and the power that she gained from accepting herself, although I feel this became muddy in the book’s finale. Ava and Kaye’s relationship, which is advertised as a selling point for the book, felt insta-lovey. The romance is brief and limited to a single chapter that felt disconnected from the rest of the book. One thing I did really love, however, was that there was no homophobia!

I would love to see more incorporation of the rapunzel story— our protagonist Ava is trapped in a house by her mother and has long hair, but once she escapes in the opening chapters, no other references to the fairytale are made.

Overall, The Witch and the Vampire had a fun and unique concept and interesting moments in the plot— I think that with some changes for clarity and relationship development it could make a really compelling book!

Thank you so much to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the opportunity to read and review this book!

This is a story about the girl who isn’t stuck in the house anymore..

I wanted to love this, but the present tense, first person narration style really didn’t work for me in this case. I was so distracted by the style that it took me out of the story & I kept rereading to make sure I didn’t miss content… I think it just wasn’t for me. I terms of the actual story- it was fine, and as unique as its possible for a retelling to be.

Thank you so much Netgalley & Wednesday books for the eArc!

I really love the cover of this book. It was one of the main things that dragged me to it. Besides it being about vampires. What can I say I'm sucker for vampire books.

The characters in this book aren't my favorite. They just felt really flat and didn't have much personality or depth to them. Ava is a young vampire who never gets to make decisions for herself being trapped in the attic for two years by her vampire mother. I rooted for her but didn't see her as this strong character. Kaye is just this angry character who didn't seem to be the smartest. She automatically thought that Ava was the one to kill her mom just because her mom died by a vampire attack and then Ava went missing and she supposedly saw Ava with blood on her face looking out the window later on, not even the same day. She also decided to never tell anyone what she saw and believed. Never going to the house or anything. Her relationship with Tristan is also weird. She doesn't seem like the kind of person who keeps friends very easily.

This book is marketed as a sapphic romance, but the romance is literally just one kiss. So don't expect them to be confessing their love for each other or talk about the kiss because it doesn't happen. They share a kiss and it's never spoken about. It felt like the two of them didn't have any chemistry and were just caught up in the moment. I understand this book is for young adults, but I was hoping the LGBTQ stuff would be more in this book. This book feels like a middle grade for most of the book.

The plot was confusing especially at the end. I'm still not entirely sure what happened. There was alot of info dumping about all these events, but we never saw any of them. One scene that really didn't make sense was one character was dying of thirst and she could have eaten these berries in the book to help her survive but didn't.

They also market this as a Rapunzel retelling because the main character has long hair and is stuck in this attic-like tower. But it just gave me more questions about the vampire lore. As far as I could tell the vampires in this book needed blood, could heal, could also be in the sunlight, and their hair can grow after they die. I've never seen any other vampire book talk about vampires' hair being able to still grow.

I feel like this book needed a dang map because it was a little hard to keep track of where all these places were. The magic system was hard to follow everyone could actually do.

I was able to read this book pretty quickly, but overall, I wasn't the biggest fan of this book and was a little disappointed.

This book was pitched as a sapphic Rapunzel retelling between a witch and a vampire, which I was extremely excited about. I think the writing style was really good and, because it is YA, it is really easy to understand when trying to understand the general idea. I really enjoyed the main characters, Ava & Kaye. I thought their dynamic worked well together and I enjoyed that they were fighting for each other. However, everything felt a little underdeveloped. I would have loved for this to potentially be a series where we really got to dive deeper into the character backstories, especially the surrounding characters or the past friendship between the main characters. I also wish, because this was marketed as a Rapunzel retelling, there would have been more elements of this original story. It felt like that aspect really fell flat as this seems like something the book really centers around. In terms of the writing, I felt like the ending got a little muddy and it was a little harder to understand, especially because I think things were underdeveloped. Of course, these are minor details and the concept still works really well. I just think there are things that could make this story a lot better and attention-grabbing. If you are a fan or childhood friends to enemies to lovers between sapphic vampires or witches, this story is definitely for you.

Thank you to NetGalley & the publisher(s) for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest rating & review.

I was immediately intrigued when I saw that The Witch and the Vampire was a lesbian retelling of Rapunzel, with witches and vampires. It sounded interesting even though, by the time I requested it from NetGalley, I was already seeing some negative reviews. I don't know if my copy had been updated by the time I received my ARC but I found a lot of the negative reviews to be unfounded.

I've always been drawn to stories of witches and vampires and it was especially interesting to read about a society where the two "species" were pitted against in such a way only to find out that the history they know is not the full story. It was fun to find out more information as time went on and discover exactly what happened to cause such a conflict.

I thought the main characters were pretty well written though the side characters were kind of caricatures. Ava and Kaye were fairly well rounded but some of the enemies were over the top and Tristan kind of needs to be more fleshed out. I understand that all of the characters had grown apart but it seemed as though he was an important person in Ava and Kaye's past and he became important at the end. We should have seen more in between instead of him just seeming like an angsty boy. Maybe a few POV chapters from him would have made his end ARC more powerful.

There were a couple issues with some passages that were more tell than show and some situations that got tied up quicker than they probably should have but overall I really enjoyed the book.

The Witch and the Vampire follows ex-best friends Ava and Kaye. Two years ago, vampires broke through the magical barrier protecting their little town, killed Kaye’s mother and turned Ava into a vampire. Since then, Ava has been trapped in her house – since Ava is one of the few vampires who still retains her witch powers, her mother Eugenia refuses to let her leave, taking Ava’s magic to hide that her daughter is a vampire—and she is one as well. Desperate to escape her cage, Ava decides to flee and seek help from the vampires who live in the forest. Kaye, meanwhile, is at the end of her training as a flame witch and is ready to fulfil her destiny: killing any vampires that threaten the town. And Ava happens to be one of them. On the night that Ava manages to escape, Kaye follows her, plotting to act as her ally only to turn her in. But what begins as a plot turns into both Kaye and Ava questioning everything they’ve ever known—about their world, their rules and themselves. If they want to make it out of the forest alive, they’ll have to do the one thing they thought they’d never could again: trust each other.

You know I was hooked the second I heard queer Rapunzel retelling. As someone who is very much here for the queer retellings we’re being served with recently (just think of Kalynn Bayron’s Cinderella Is Dead or TJ Klune’s upcoming In The Lives of Puppets), I knew I needed to read this immediately. And while I wasn’t as blown away as I would have hoped, I still think this is a solid entry to the retelling genre.

While there are quite a few moments that rather tell the reader what characters are feeling rather than showing the anguish, fear and frustration Ava and Kaye struggle with, you could still see what makes them tick on their own and why they hold so strongly to their beliefs, whether it’s because of what they’ve learned or what they’ve been conditioned to accept as irrefutable truths. I’m always intrigued when we get to meet new worlds with other rules and concepts that seem to feel so ingrained in the characters until they inevitable have to question whether what others have told them is really the truth or just a convenient smoke screen and Flores delivers beautifully in this aspect.

As compelling as the premise was, the character and relationship development left a lot to be desired. I was frustrated at times because, while the “natural” enemies part between Ava and Kaye is well established and called back into focus many a times, we never really get the development from enemies to allies to friends to something more. There are flashbacks that tell us that Ava and Kaye used to be friends, but I needed more during the actual plot to feel invested. Instead, most of the development of their relationship is left until the very last chapters of the novel and thus feels pretty insubstantial and somewhat rushed. However, there are a few moments that made me root for Ava and Kaye to figure out how to work together to save their seemingly incompatible worlds.

All that being said, I still adored the premise and am always here for more sapphic witches and vampires. There’s a lot of promise in this story and with a bit more work on showing rather than telling and character development, I’m excited to see what Flores comes up with next.

Sapphic ex-best-friends-to-natural-enemies-to-lovers meet in this queer Rapunzel retelling that’s perfect for fans Kalynn Bayron’s Cinderella Is Dead and The Grimrose Girls by Laura Pohl.

This was an interesting twist of the retelling of Rapunzel. Very enjoyable story with characters that I really enjoyed. This book had me a vampires lol. This was my first book I read from this author and it won’t be the last.

Thank you to Francesca Flores, St, Martin's Press, Wednesday Books and NetGally for an eARC in exchange for my honest opinion. The Witch and the Vampire comes out March 21, 2023.

The Witch and the Vampire is a queer Rapunzel retelling featuring vampires and witches. Kaye and Ava , both witches, used to be best friends and had some romantic feelings starting to develop. That is until the fateful night vampires attach their village with the end results being Kaye's mom dead and Ava being turned into a vampire. Since that night Ava is being held in her house by her mother, being used for her magic. During another vampire attach Ava escapes and heads to the forest to find other vampires. Kaye, a freshly trained fire witch, convinces Ava she can help her in the forest. All the while Kaye plans on turning Ava in for being a vampire. Through multiple roadblocks will the be able to rekindle their friendship or will they not be able to trust each other in the end.

I was super excited for this book, it had everything I wanted in a fantasy book. I was especially excited about it not only being about witches and vampires but the fact they were sapphic was a huge plus. Honestly I did enjoy reading this fantasy, it was exciting in the beginning and continued on with an interesting story about friendship and love. The world building was easy to pick up. I do have to say I wish there was alittle more depth to the characters, I just wanted a little more. But overall I thought it was an enjoyable YA fantasy novel.

I was so excited when I saw the cover and the synopsis for this book. A Sapphic YA Rapunzel retelling/ reimagining, sign me up! Unfortunately, this one fell flat for me.

My first issue was with the lack of world building. There were so many concepts and things happening and I don’t feel that everything was fully developed. I still have a lot of questions about the witches and their powers, etc.

The romance was also a major letdown. Based on the cover, I was expecting more romance but Kaye and Ava don’t exchange much dialogue during the book. They have a history but I definitely needed more from them in the present to buy into their connection and HEA.

I did enjoy pieces of this one, but parts of it dragged for me. 2.5 stars but rounding up to 3 on GR.

I received this book for free from netgalley for an honest review. I found the characters locking depth. I was able to get through the book but only barely.

Thank you NetGallery for the eARC. All opinions are my own.

I was intrigued by the title and really enjoyed this book.

Fairy Tale retelling? Dark Rapunzel in a new spin!
Supernatural/Magical? Vampires and Witches galore!
Queer romance? Sapphic!

The characters were enjoyable to watch, but the world building could have been more fleshed out. The ending sealed this as a excellent read.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was a great retelling and I loved this book so much! I feel as though I do not have enough words to express my enthusiasm for this book.

I really thought that I was going to fall into this book and love it. It has everything going for it-- sapphic, witches, vampires, all the things. I just could not make myself care. The characters did not feel fleshed out and did not have enough personality for me. There was so much potential with the plot and storyline, but it didn't do it for me. I tried but found myself struggling to pick it up to read it.

I was so pumped to read this book! A witch and a vampire? And they’re lesbians? Sign me up! But this book is way too slow to stomach. 30% in and absolutely nothing had happened. Just a lot of running around and internal dialogue. It’s a no.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this Arc. I would give The Witch and the Vampire 3/5 stars. It took me quite a while to read and get into, but the ending raised my score. The character development seemed shallow and the relationships didn’t make me feel much. The best character is Nuira in my opinion and I hope she continues to be in the future books. The perspective jumps were a bit choppy and redundant, but I did appreciate being in the minds of both main characters. I loved the magic and world created. Now that some of the background is built I do look forward to seeing where this story goes. Beautiful cover as well.

Ava is a vampire. Kaye is a witch. They used to be friends. Until Ava's mom turned her into a vampire and hid her. Now Kaye uses her powers to hunt vampires. Ava finally has the chance to escape and Kaye finally has the chance to catch a vampire. Will they be able to work together to achieve their goals?

This book has a solid plot and world-building. I liked Ava's character growth as she discovered more about her powers and how she came to be a vampire. I would have liked to read more backstory about Casopiea and her vampires. Tristan fell kind of flat for me as a character. While he was present, I feel like most of the story could have taken place without him. I also really wanted more at the end. An epilogue to show Ava coming further into her powers or how she and Kaye were doing.