I love the idea of this book, but unfortunately it just wasn’t executed as well as I had hoped. The lack of world building made it very difficult to feel immersed in the story, and at times I was so confused by the plot I had to go back and read certain sections again. The romantic aspect of this book is part of what drew me to it in the first place, but it really didn’t seem well thought out. They went from hatred to love very quickly and that was mostly told to the readers rather than shown. The characters weren’t even interacting with each other when those feelings changed. Overall, I enjoy the base idea here but feel it could have been fleshed out a bit more.

This was a fun YA fantasy/romance read. Friends to enemies to lovers trope, which I always enjoy. After the beginning's information dump, the plot of this book moves very quickly. And overall, I found it to be a fun, quick read. The pacing was strange though... it felt both rushed and drawn out.

I do have to say, I found the characters to be pretty one dimensional. I also wished the. author spent more time on world building. The details we got at the end felt rushes and dumped on you, I wish the world was built out more than just a forest and two small towns.

I loved the idea of the book more than the reality of it unfortunately.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing an eARC.

This was really good. I liked both characters and they meshed really well! I love the fantasy setting and the world building. I highly enjoyed it. I definitely want to read more by this author!

A big thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the eARC. I am voluntarily reviewing this book. This is my fault, as I didn't read the blurb well enough. This book was not for me. I found this to be very dark. Her mom is stealing her energy. 3 stars

Getting access to read Francesca Flores' new book had me overjoyed. Ever since Diamond City, I have been waiting for whatever else this author has for us and she's written a sapphic Rapunzel love story where not only:

Rapunzel saves herself or more like, escapes but...

The love interest is her former best friend...

AAAAAND the tension between the two drove me crazy!!

Now, here we go.

Short Summary: The Rapunzel we know is a witch turned into a vampire who escapes her tower to end up in a journey with her former best friend who is a vampire hunter and perhaps the only person who can either kill her-- or save her from the dangerous forest that may give them the answers to the magic running in their blood.

Long Summary: Ava is tired of her life in the tower. Tired of her stepfather who mocks her at every turn. Tired of her over-protective mother who locks her in with no chance to escape, but when she overhears her mother's evil plans to wreak havoc across the land she knows, she escapes into the forest in search of the Vampire Queen.

Until she bumps into Kaye.

Kaye, Ava's former best friend. Kaye, a witch vampire hunter who seeks vengeance after her mother's death and to be the best vampire hunter. But as much as Kaye seeks to kill Ava for being the suspect of her mother's death, she also can't shake their past. And to not be eaten by other vampires, she must journey into the same forest with Ava to reach Casiopeia, where Kaye will end Ava once and for all.
But only if they both don't address the blossoming feelings between the two. Or if the forest won't threaten to kill them first.

My favorite character by far was Kaye and the storytelling did capture my interest as her work always does! Tristan annoyed me throughout the book and while Ava captures the perfect amount of naivete, she also stands out with her own edge and has a great amount of inner turmoil to deal with *chuckles in a corner*

ANYWAYS GO PREORDER IT NOW!!

Overall: 5/5 stars

The Witch and the Vampire was an interesting YA story about two former friends, one witch-one vampire, who end up having to help each other out of a deadly situation. I really enjoyed it. The characters were well written and you end up really hoping that Ava and Kaye somehow work their issues out. The world-building was good, the forest was crazy dangerous and very believable. Yes, there are plot points that go nowhere and it drags on a bit, but it is still worthy. All in all, I thought it was a fun read and would love to read more about Ava and Kaye.

“The Witch and the Vampire.”

At first, it sounds overly simplistic. How could a title so minimalist provide any real insight into the nuances of a book that’s 368 pages long.

But as I read The Witch and the Vampire I began to realize the title speaks volumes about Ava (the vampire) and Kaye (the witch). Each has an urgent desire to escape the labels that have been placed upon them and all the heavy weight of the expectations that come attached to these labels.

The title speaks to this struggle: despite their best efforts, their entire identities and all their complexities are each reduced to a single loaded word. Once best friends, these inescapable labels cast them as mortal enemies in a conflict that appears to have no end, until they begin to discover the truth behind the stories that they’ve been told.

The Witch and the Vampire succeeds in a way that many stories set in a fantasy world fail to do, painting a picture of the world and its social and political factions without getting bogged down in excessive details that would slow down the pacing or make the writing come off as bloated.

I found myself completely drawn in by the characters and how their feelings, perspectives, and ambitions shifted and grew as time went on. It felt authentic and lived-in, and I was captivated by the enemies-to-lovers storyline between Ava and Kaye but also by the deepening mystery that threatened to consume both of them as they pulled back the curtain on everything they knew about their world.

The Witch and the Vampire is a compelling read set in a well-crafted fantasy world, and I would definitely recommend it to those that enjoy light romance and a little mystery. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this title in exchange for my honest review!

A queer retelling of Rapunzel with more supernatural/fantasy elements? I absolutely cheered when I received confirmation for this ARC and wanted to love it so badly. Unfortunately, it just didn't live up to my expectations.

This book follows Ava, who has been turned into a Vampire, and Kaye, a witch who hunts Vampires. Both girls feel like they have no one they can trust, and although they used to be best friends - a wedge has been driven between them, which includes the fact that Ava now needs blood to survive. Ava eventually escapes the tower she is being held in and finds her old friend Kaye when they run into each other in the forest - each having their own motives for needing to work together to make it through the forest unscathed.

As I said, I really wished I had loved this book! The cover is beautiful and the description was really intriguing, but the personalities of the characters were really bland and I felt that so much of the novel was telling me what was occurring instead of showing me as the reader, which can be a reason I'm not as drawn into certain fantasy novels. I think the concepts for this book were brilliant, just were not executed to their full potential and as such it felt very one dimensional with humans = good and vampires = bad.

I personally just also think that this author's writing style is not for me, as I had several issues with some of the grammar and the heavy info dumping that occurred in areas that did not necessarily make sense. Unfortunately, this book did not redeem itself for me but it was a quick & easy read. 2.5 stars because I do think it was a really good concept.

I've really tried to finish this book. At 30% I was about to give up. The writing is very quick, but it lacks a lot of potential world building and information. It picked up a bit, and I enjoyed the book for a short while, but at this point I'm just forcing myself to get trough it. I'm now at 77% and the characters are just so very ignorant and stupid. They forgive and forget so annoyingly fast and I just can't. At this point I've been trying with this book for almost 4 weeks and I just don't have any interest in finishing it.
One extra star for the potential that this book could've been, but isn't.

The way first person is used makes the narrative feel very self-centered, limited in scope, melodramatic, and forces the reader into a being told a lot of information without being shown a lot of info.

Does Chrysalis exist within the bone wall? In the first chapter I thought that was strict vampire territory so they couldn’t hurt humans. Are they really that dangerous if there’s a whole city within their territory?

Kaye is 1/2 Saren, and there are racial prejudices against Sareni people in Arborren and the empire. But Ava is full Saren and her mother sits on the Clarity council. She’s made more mention if this, and Kaye doesn’t bring up her and Ava’s shared heritage, or prejudices they’ve both faced. All the “traitor” comments had been linked to her mom being empathetic to vampires before and ppl thinking she held the same sentiment. I thought the vampires were going to act as the allegory for racism, but now we have regular racism too. Why doesn’t Ava mention any of that from her time before becoming a vampire as comparison to now?

Zenos was a superfluous character. It could have just been Ava and her mom and their complicated relationship. The vampire attack could have been part of Ava’s escape chapter from the house. She could have encountered a Flame Witch and had to fight/run/hide/lie.

The magic abilities are not clearly defined. Flame witches being able to manipulate light to catch things on fire and also create/destroy shadows? Okay, that sounds reasonable. The out of nowhere ability to create shackles? Why was that left without explanation? That sounds like a very intricate and tightly controlled ability for someone at the most unwieldy of their powers to have.

Contrived simile and metaphor. Seen so many times before.

Kaye’s plan makes sense for Kaye, but it doesn’t make sense why Ava trusts her. I could see her feeling backed into a corner and having no choice, but she seems to think Kaye’s not hiding the truth (third act break up/misunderstanding? Probably)

It feels like the flame witch powers and training don’t have limits. Why am I 20%+ through and still learning about basic powers and training? It would be one thing to come about new abilities and bring focus to them, but every time Kaye does something it doesn’t need the tag “as I was taught as a flame witch”. I feel like we could assume that for most of the things she does, unless it was something special she did with her mom.

No difference between narration voice and conversation voice with the characters

Conversation between the characters will abruptly stop so narration can take place.

This was one of my most-anticipated reads of 2023.

A queer Rapunzel retelling with vampires and elemental magic? Sign me up. And how about that covert art? Absolutely stunning.

The book itself, however, was rather disappointing.

"The Witch and the Vampire" is plagued by terrible writing and too much plot, Instead, more time should have been spent developing the very complicated relationship between Ava and Kaye.

Without this development, the conclusion seems not only rushed, but also rather cruel.

I see so much potential in Francesca Flores and her incredible imagination, but this wasn't it for me.

3.5/5

This was a cute (but also dark) sapphic fantasy book for fans of witches and vampires. If you enjoy the friends-to-enemies-to-lovers trope, definitely add this one to your list! I found the book to be a bit slow at times, but overall I enjoyed and would recommend if you’re interested in the synopsis.

I really wanted to love this book and I think I might have 10 years ago - but now, it just fell flat for me. It wasn't horrible by any means, but it also wasn't great. I think this book could have been dragged out to at least a duology and it would have made it way better.

A few things I liked:
- The romance was cute
- Age appropriate for YA
- Interesting concept
- Sapphic Rapunzel Retelling

A few things I didn't like:
- The dialogue was choppy
- Too much happened in a short amount of time, I think this would have been better as a duology to give us time to absorb what was going on
- The quick pace also made the progression of the main character's love just... off
- Characters are extremely one dimensional, they are either good or bad, that's it, with the exception of the one vampire, I think her name was Naira
- The Dual POV just didn't work here. I think that the issue was the mc who was a vampire was way more interesting and just was written better in general.
- Info dumping, which again, probably could have been helped by at least making this a duology, because we got wayyy to much at once.

This started out a little slow, but once I was hooked, I couldn’t put it down. Friends to enemies to allies to friends to enemies to friends to lovers PERFECTION. The magic system here is your basic elemental magic essentially with a few twists to it (that quite honestly didn’t make much sense to me but it was still very fun). The two main characters are badass and so flawed and healing from some really dark stuff. The healing journeys that both girls went through were done respectfully and realistically, which I really enjoyed. There were some heavier topics here, so be sure to check the trigger warnings, but I didn’t find the content as it relates to those topics to be overbearing or difficult to read through. There were a few inconsistencies throughout that weren’t big enough to be called plot holes but definitely made me stop and wonder what I had missed. However, they were all very small and irrelevant things so it’s easy to ignore. Overall, I really loved this. The chemistry between the MC’s and the healing they go through together is delightful.

Have you seen the cover? It's STUNNING. I was so excited to fall in love with this story but it honestly just fell flat for me. When I saw that this was a queer Repunzel retelling with a witch and vampire, it peaked my interest over the top. But overall the story fell flat and the world building was something that lacked imagination. On top of that, the characters also seemed like something I've read before, which left me a bit disappointed.

Don't let my opinion sway you! This could be your next favorite read.

Thank you to Wednesday Books and NetGalley for this ARC.

Overall, this book wasn’t really for me unfortunately. I found that the writing was rather dry, and felt that the world building was quite weak. I didn’t really like Ava and Kaye too much as characters either.
The writing wasn’t horrible, but I just felt that the amazing potential that the premise of this book had ultimately wasn’t capitalized on the best and I struggled to finish this book.

Thank you to Wednesday Books and NetGalley for a chance to read and review this early.

I struggled with this one, so much so that I had to stop after 50%. The writing wasn't engaging, the characters frustrating, the motivations weak. I was super excited about the premise (and that cover is GORGEOUS) but unfortunately the rest of the book really didn't hold up for me.

i had high hopes for this- i was so excited to read about a lesbian rapunzel retelling, however it was a bit of a disappointment for me
although i didn’t like this much, i didn’t hate it; i enjoyed the first half, and i can see what the author was going for, but the overall execution was poor
i did love kaye and ava though so i’ll give it that!

the writing made me feel like i was reading a wattpad book or something i’d write in middle school, and maybe that’s just the intended audience.
the writing was missing personality and i found myself forgetting who’s chapter i was reading and mixing up ava and kaye’s. the storytelling lacked as well and i was a bit uninterested; there was not much exploration into the characters and the world.

i felt as if so many things in this were cliche and basic, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it had me struggling to keep myself engaged. i like the vampires vs humans trope, but i wish there was more depth and originality to this, it was just a bit boring, especially with the lack of worldbuilding

I want to start by saying thank you to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for the ARC!
The Witch and the Vampire has a very interesting premise and it isn't something I have personally read before so I was definitely invested in the plot however, I think the characters could have used more fleshing out. Our two POV's sound very similar and their characters are really only different in that one is a vampire and one is just a witch. The side characters also fell a little flat and didn't seem to have clear reasoning behind their actions except a warped sense of justice and a need for power. They are the bad guys masked as the good guys and I spent the entire book frustrated with them. I will say, a random character thrown in halfway into the book ended up being one of my favorites and we only get like 3 or 4 scenes with her in it. If there ends up being a sequel at some point, I'd love to see her make a reappearance.

I think the overall pacing was done well and the friends to enemies back to friends to lovers aspect was portrayed better than some of the newer fantasies with the same trope have. My one complaint on the relationship is that we didn't get a good picture of what their friendship was like before all of this. We get a few memories but they didn't give a whole lot and I definitely think portraying those memories more in depth would have made a big difference.

All of this aside, I did enjoy this book and if the premise is something that interest you, and you want more wlw friends-to-enemies-to-lovers, it's definitely worth a read! Plus the cover is absolutely beautiful!!!

Favorite quotes:
"I died and I'm still here, so I should stop fearing my own shadow."

"She's warmth and sunlight and ice and stars all at the same time."

"You have not suffered long enough to understand my pain." "And perhaps you've suffered so much that you can no longer see reason."

I would foremost like to thank NetGalley for allowing me to read this ARC.

I'd high hopes for this book, since the catch line is "... a sapphic Rapunzel retelling with vampires and witches!" But once I began reading it, it took me a while to actually get into it.

This doesn't read as YA (to me), it reads way more like middle grade. I wanted to love this book. The world building could use major work. As a reader, I didn't quite grasp the magic system, or how exactly did they acquire their powers, or even how the magic works. There's a lot of telling and not a lot of showing, which is imperative when it comes to fantasy novels. It wasn't until I was 220 pages into the book that some semblance of the magic system and world building happened when the book only has 303 pages.

The story is told in two points of view, our heroine Ava's and her friend turned enemy turned friend turned lover, Kaye, and if there wasn't an identifier at the beginning of each change of POV, I wouldn't have noticed I was reading a different POV until the dialogue commenced, since they both read exceptionally similar. The phrases they each use in their POV are written word for word, same with minor changes throughout.

Flores did a great job building the character's stories, but the rest of the world around them almost felt like an afterthought.

The last few chapters of this book were honestly the saving grace and the reason I'm giving it 3 stars instead of 2.