The Witch and the Vampire is a fantastical take on a queer retelling of the rupunzel fairy tale that drew me in with a lovely cover and kept me glued to the page with beautiful storytelling.
What I liked
1.Friends to enemies to lovers is a trope I didn't know I needed
2.Excellent handling of pacing
3. Dialogue was handled well and character's voices felt fully individualized.
What didn't work as well for me
1.The retelling aspect of this story gets extremely obscured by the last fourth of the book.
2. Side characters felt underdeveloped for much of the story.
Who I would recommend this book for
The Witch and the Vampire Will be a delightful read for fans of Young adult fantasy looking for a refreshing spin on the rupunzel style fairy tale.

While I enjoyed this retelling, it was a bit predictable. I would have loved more growth in Ava and Kaye's relationship, and more time with them together. All in all it's a good story, just a bit short.

This was an absolutely fantastic read. The setting and worldbuilding were so visual and stunning, the magic system was both complex but still explained in such an easy to comprehend way. I really liked the characters and found them to be intriguing and complex with dynamic and interesting motivations. The plot had so many elements that I loved, but more than anything it was a story that transcended so many traditional tropes and was more than a love story. All of the elements to a romance were there, but it was made even more brilliant that it was more about the connections they characters made along their journey than about the lovey dovey parts of the story. I thought this was pure magnificence.

The Witch and the Vampire is fast paced and attention grabbing. Each page keeps you waiting for the next clue to solve the mystery of Ava, Kaye, the witches, the vampires, and the Bone Wall. The character development allows for growth as the reader gets to know them. The differing storylines are skillfully weaved together and wrapped up at the end in a way that leaves the reader wondering what happens in the next chapter.

"The Witch and the Vampire" was a little bit hard to rate for me. I had a good time reading it, but there are a few things I wish had been a little bit better. There was a lot of potential for this story, and I didn’t quite get everything I wanted out of it.

I enjoyed the initial setup of the story and how Rapunzel was reimagined, but a lack of world building further into the book made it a little more difficult to get into. I never had a great picture of the world as a whole, and at times I found I was confused about where exactly certain places were or the ‘lore’ behind everything. I still enjoyed the story, but I would’ve preferred to have more time dedicated to really defining the world.

The romantic aspect of this book did also let me down a little bit. While there is some romance, it was a less important plot than I was expecting, given how heavily this is marketed as a queer Rapunzel retelling. I still liked Ava and Kaye as characters and the progression of their relationship from friends to enemies to lovers, I just wanted more from the romance.

*Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

First of all the cover is amazing. This story is a Queer retelling of Rapunzel which contains elements of witches and vampires.
The characters are easy to follow along, the plot was a bit slow for me at first but eventually it picked up. I love the slow progression of the relationships of the characters from friends, to enemies and then towards lovers in the end. It was a great read and i wasn't expecting to finish this in one sitting.
My main issue is that this didn't felt like a young adult novel, it was more or less a middle grade read. Some scenes felt all over the place and wasn't exactly making sense. This perhaps must be an editing issue.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to net galley for the arc
I wanted to like this book desperately not only because it's a sapphic fantasy but also to support a Latine author; I was heart broken when this book fell short. The Rapunzel them of the novel doesn't come across as clearly as I would hoped it would and where I did love the idea of a fantasy world with vampires; I feel as if the author should have simply chosen one or the other when it came to the central plot of the book. I enjoyed Ava and Kaye as characters I wish more time would have been spent on developing the world around them that would make them feel more fleshed out. Over all I think that The witch and the vampire has potential to be something great I feel like the story is distracted; if someone was looking for a good sapphic fairy tale I recommend reading Malice by Heather Walter

I really enjoyed The Witch and the Vampire! I think it could have been a few chapters shorter in the beginning to get to the bones of the story, but otherwise I really enjoyed watching Ava and Kaye work together! Ava's story is so tragic, and seeing her get a second chance with the person she'd thought she lost forever was really beautiful. The slow burn enemies to lovers was done so well, and the plot was so engaging that I couldn't stop reading. I really look forward to seeing what else Francesca puts out in the future!

Thank you to NetGalley for the eARC!

This was a very average YA fantasy. I neither loved nor hated it. It simply wasn’t for me.. Regardless, I would still say give it a shot! You might have better luck.

The Witch and the Vampire is an exciting and magical story! I loved that it was a retelling with a twist. The world building was amazing and I could visualize everything. I do wish it was a little faster paced, but overall a great read.
Thank you Netgalley and St.Martin's Press for the ARC!

Thank you St. Martin's Press for an arc of this in exchange for an honest review!

was the writing simple? yes. did it lack a bit of character development? also yes. but it's a sapphic retelling of rapunzel with a vampire/vampire hunter romance so no i won't be saying anything bad about this book (also the first physical arc i've ever gotten so thank you so much for that)

I was really anticipating this one and the cover is beautiful!! The premise is the dramatic reunion of former best friends, one who has become a vampire and one who lost a family member to a vampire attack. It’s queer and claims to be somewhat of a Rapunzel retelling. To me, the writing was very very simple and felt on the young side of YA, and it was missing a lot of character development. The two main characters each have POV chapters and I could not tell the difference between them very well. It was also a lot of telling the reader how close they used to me and how much they now hate each other instead of showing it more naturally. I read a big chunk of this book and still knew nothing more about the plot than what was given in the synopsis, and it was very repetitive. Sadly, I don’t really recommend this one.

Unfortunately, this was a struggle to get through. I probably wouldn't have finished it if I didn't get it on Netgalley. The plot was clunky and slow and the characters were underdeveloped. The struggles were too quickly resolved in order to move the story along and the characters changed their minds from page to page.

3/10 (1.5 stars)
I don't know where to begin. I've been sitting on this review for days, trying to put these thoughts into words. This is the second highly anticipated title of the year (for me) that fell completely flat.

First, we're throwing the word "retelling" around a little too loosely. This was advertised as a retelling of Rapunzel, and it is not. A character having very long hair does not constitute a Rapunzel retelling. Retelling's mean there are multiple elements of the original text/tale/lore in the new story. One element is just a coincidence. I know retellings are very popular right now, but we can't just slap that label on every book, when they have nothing to do with the original work.

Secondly, the writing leaves something to be desired. For a YA book, it reads more like middle grade. The dialogue was unnatural, the sentences are choppy, and parts of this felt like a rough draft. There wasn't a lot of showing in this book, and instead we're just told what things are (sometimes. Sometimes we aren't told anything, which is even worse). I am begging YA authors to stop treating YA readers like they aren't capable of critical thought. Everything does not need to be spelled out word for word, on the page. There can be nuance, euphemism, foreshadowing, really anything that will give the story depth.

I received this arc through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

"Francesca Flores's The Witch and the Vampire is a queer Rapunzel retelling where a witch and a vampire who trust no one but themselves must journey together through a cursed forest with danger at every turn.

Ava and Kaye used to be best friends. Until one night two years ago, vampires broke through the magical barrier protecting their town, and in the ensuing attack, Kaye's mother was killed, and Ava was turned into a vampire. Since then, Ava has been trapped in her house. Her mother Eugenia needs her: Ava still has her witch powers, and Eugenia must take them in order to hide that she's a vampire as well. Desperate to escape her confinement and stop her mother's plans to destroy the town, Ava must break out, flee to the forest, and seek help from the vampires who live there. When there is another attack, she sees her opportunity and escapes.

Kaye, now at the end of her training as a Flame witch, is ready to fulfill her duty of killing any vampires that threaten the town, including Ava. On the night that Ava escapes, Kaye follows her and convinces her to travel together into the forest, while secretly planning to turn her in. Ava agrees, hoping to rekindle their old friendship, and the romantic feelings she'd started to have for Kaye before that terrible night.

But with monstrous trees that devour humans whole, vampires who attack from above, and Ava's stepfather tracking her, the woods are full of danger. As they travel deeper into the forest, Kaye questions everything she thought she knew. The two are each other's greatest threat - and also their only hope, if they want to make it through the forest unscathed."

I am ALL ABOUT Rapunzel retellings!

I received a gifted copy of this book from netgalley and I am leaving my review completely voluntarily.
The Witch and the Vampire is a queer Rapunzel retelling. Ava is a vampire root witch, and Kaye, her childhood best friend, is a witch of the flame. Ava was turned into a vampire a couple of years prior, and her mom was the one who turned her. In this story, Ava is Rapunzel. She's locked away in the tower, kept away from anyone who might find out her secret. Kaye's unaware of this and thinks that she just disappeared or went off to study in another land. After the loss of her mother, Kaye is made to hate vampires, and while she recognizes Ava when they meet again, she's disgusted that Ava is a vampire. Ava knows she can't change Kaye's opinion of her and the vampire race, but she's surprised when Kaye wants to help her with her escape.
I'm gonna be honest, I was really hyped about this book but there were times I genuinely struggled to get through it. It doesn't pick up until about 40% into the book, but when it does, it does start to get decent. The world building is great, and I love that Ava and Kaye find common ground to stand on, despite their differences. I love the concept of the different kinds of witches, and the prose is wonderful. Francesca really put her heart into this book, and I am thankful for the opportunity to be an ARC reader. Thanks to Netgalley, Wednesday books and Francesca Flores for the ARC copy. This book comes out next month.

As an avid lover of retellings and sapphic romances, I was already quite keen on this story as soon as I first heard of it, and I have to say, my expectations were more than just met. This story was hard to put down and left me so enchanted by the ending that my only qualm with the story is that it did in fact end. I could have read more, so much more, but even I can admit that the ending was one that I adored. Friends-to-enemies-to-lovers. Who could ask for a more perfect ending?

Ava, a recently turned vampire, has been trapped in her tower-like room for the past two years and craves her freedom from her controlling mother. When Ava discovers a nefarious plot of her mother’s that puts all of humanity at risk, she must escape her confines to find the legendary vampire queen to warn of her of her mother’s treachery, with help from an unlikely source: Kaye, her former best friend-turned-enemy, who dreams of becoming a powerful Flame witch whose main goal is to eradicate all vampire-kind. Along the way, old friendships are rekindled as their loyalties are tested, and all too soon the lines between human and monster blur the closer these former friends get to reaching their separate goals…and each other.

My love Ava’s transformation from a meek, weak girl to the strong young woman and vampire she was meant to be was only rivaled by my love for Kaye’s discovery of more beyond what she’s been told and taught, leaving both their worldviews entirely shaken. This is a story of strong friendships, fantastic supporting cast, self-discovery, and a love brighter than any flame. I can’t wait to read it over and over again.

A Rapunzel retelling is, at its core, really hard to pull off, given that half of the story is in the tower or leaving it, which doesn't make for a terribly interesting plot on its own. So it's really hard to call this a Rapunzel retelling when Ava escapes from her tower within the first few chapters and cuts her hair a few chapters later. The majority of the plot is, instead, on figuring out if there's a way for the vampires, witches, and humans to live in any sort of balance (not to mention foiling plots to enflame further conflict). It's a great adventure plot, and a great setting for Ava and Kaye to reconcile after two years of separation (due to Ava being locked in her tower).

Unfortunately, it's also really clunky. There are a lot of things about the worldbuilding or character decisions that felt arbitrary or nonsensical to the point of making me sit back and blink. Characters jump to conclusions or assumptions that pull the plot forward, but feel out of nowhere; there were a few I was hoping would be revisited and just...aren't. I'm not sure how intentional it was, but the quotes at the beginning of each of Ava's chapters tend to formatted to read like poetry with line breaks in the middle of sentences, despite them being journal entries. There are also clunky descriptions (beige skin, "Ava's Clarity mother", blood stored in burlap sacks, the smell of silver being mistaken for the scent of blood) and an excess of misleading pronouns and sentence structures that would make me halt in my tracks and have to reread to figure out exactly what just happened and who was doing what. It kept me from really enjoying the story, which felt a shame.

There's also an entire scene missing in chapter 13, which I assume will get fixed, but it did mean I had to piece together what happened and seem to have missed some character interactions. The book also desperately needs a map; I almost tried to sketch one out myself to try and make sense of the scale of the forest versus the cities and countries around it versus the cities and mines within it.

The characters are the best part; Ava and Kaye's relationship is sweet and what carried me through the last third of the book, and I'm definitely rooting for their future together.

I'm a sucker for retellings. A retelling of Rapunzel, throw in some vampires and a sapphic romance with an enemies-lovers vibe and this book completely combined my reading from childhood and teenage years and spiced it up with a girls love story that was missing from stories during those times. This is a new era of young adult fiction and I am enraptured.

This feels like it was created to spawn fanfiction. Like yes go off, old best friends who feel betrayed by each other and who each are deeply tormented and have powerful magicks! Now kiss!

I liked the core idea of the different kinds of witchcraft but the larger worldbuilding was kinda...shruggy. It definitely felt like the author wanted to give just enough detail in order to fuel the tortured magical lovers but not enough for the world to feel lived in?

Also like I had a sense that it was like kinda generic Old Fantasy Times but then there's like a one-off mention of a "freezer" like did you mean an icebox or do these bitches have electricity???

Also all the combat was clunky and boring. Also having this be a "Rapunzel retelling" on top of also being about witches, vampires, and vampire-witches is kind of like putting a hat on a hat. A wig on a wig. On a witch hat.

IDK check it out if ya horny for vampire witches I guess, and no shade if you are. There's definitely a market for this book, I'm just not it. But my guess is that you could be better served by reading Vampire Diaries fanfiction.