**Thank you to NetGalley and Publisher for the ARC of Night of Death and Flowers in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.**
▪︎Review is live on Goodreads as of 07/25/2024▪︎

7/25/2024
4⭐️
1.5🌶

I was very excited to read this one, as the cover is so pretty and the plot blurb was very intriguing. The copy I read is not the finalized version, and a recent post on authors IG relays that the finished product is more polished and a bit different, so I will have to read the final version when I have a chance.

Things I liked:
☆enemies-to-lovers
☆prophecy
☆reincarnation
☆the witch covens

I think fans of romantasy will really enjoy this book as it's got all the needed formula to be good fun! I look forward to reading the final version and the sequel!!

I have to stop picking up romantasy books and hoping that it will be the second ACOTAR. Ir sounded fun and I read it pretty quickly, and it will be perfect for die hard romantasy girlies who love Maniscalco's KOTW (I will never forgive Kerri for plunging into romance-focused books) or Elisa Kova's books. If you are looking for a fun read with EtL and tones fun-favourite quotes than this book will be perfect for you.

I’m sad to say that this book wasn’t for me, despite this plot having good potential I didn’t feel like it was well executed.

I don’t feel like throughout the book the characters motives were clear. I understand that it was building up to a plot twist however I don’t think it’s a twist if it’s just completely random and not congruent with the story.

I really wanted to like it, I love the premise of gods and reincarnation but honestly it was a struggle to read.

Star rating: 3.75/5 ✨

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. I absolutely loved it! “Night of Death and Flowers” is my first book by Rebecca L. Garcia, but it certainly won’t be my last.

The story is rich with magic, a dark atmosphere, and a “magical Hunger Games” vibe. It weaves together a prophecy, mystery, and a compelling plot. The MMC, a god of death, is both handsome and intriguing. He is the type of MMC that is a villain, willing to let the world burn for you. As the story unfolds, you get to uncover the mystery of his past and witness his flawed, complex nature.

The dual perspectives of the FMC and the MMC reveal their flawed, multifaceted characters, enhancing the narrative depth.

The plot kept me on the edge of my seat, constantly guessing about past secrets and future twists. The slow-burn tension is executed perfectly, making the romantic subplot incredibly satisfying.

The escapism provided by this book is a 10 out of 10. I felt completely immersed in its dark, magical world. The FMC stands out as a bold, badass character whose perspective I thoroughly enjoyed.

I highly recommend “Night of Death and Flowers” and am eagerly awaiting the next book to see where the story goes!Star rating: 4.5/5 ✨

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. I absolutely loved it! “Night of Death and Flowers” is my first book by Rebecca L. Garcia, but it certainly won’t be my last.

The story is rich with magic, a dark atmosphere, and a “magical Hunger Games” vibe. It weaves together a prophecy, mystery, and a compelling plot. The MMC, a god of death, is both handsome and intriguing. He is the type of MMC that is a villain, willing to let the world burn for you. As the story unfolds, you get to uncover the mystery of his past and witness his flawed, complex nature.

The dual perspectives of the FMC and the MMC reveal their flawed, multifaceted characters, enhancing the narrative depth.

The plot kept me on the edge of my seat, constantly guessing about past secrets and future twists. The slow-burn tension is executed perfectly, making the romantic subplot incredibly satisfying.

The escapism provided by this book is a 10 out of 10. I felt completely immersed in its dark, magical world. The FMC stands out as a bold, badass character whose perspective I thoroughly enjoyed.

I highly recommend “Night of Death and Flowers” and am eagerly awaiting the next book to see where the story goes!

I think this book had a really neat unique magic system. I liked the whole "hunger games" tournament too. Enjoyed the coven system as well.

The first ~30-40% of the book was captivating and perfect blend of world building and story, but once our main characters made it to the island for the tournament, I feel like the plot lost its way a little. Then the last ~10% of the book was action packed and enthralling.

Tons of secrets and twists get revealed and then it's like the book abruptly ends. I wish the over all main plot of the book had been completed in book 1 and then the consequences of that get played out in book 2.

There were things that were thought or said that were very repetitive, I also would consider this an enemies to lovers, but more of an insta-love.

Overall I enjoyed the story and concept of this book. I am interested to see how Death and Calista fair in book 2!

Night of Death Flowers is a dark fantasy with witches, gods and an interesting magic system. I really liked the premise and feel like it had a lot of potential to be an excellent book, but it fell flat.

We had dual pov between our main characters Calista and Azkeil. I felt the chapters by Calista had more flowery descriptions - enjoyable prose, immersive, dark, but then Azkeil was used for info dumping. It felt quite jarring to have such differences in the writing, but as the story progressed the chapters by Calista also went downhill.

Overall, I think this could have been very exciting but ended up being incredibly repetitive and is in desperate need of further editing with various spelling errors and duplicate words. I think it would still appeal to people just starting out in the darker romantasy genre and I hope the series will improve as it progresses.

Loved the MFC, and not giving a f about society and how they see her! We love a strong woman 👏🏽👏🏽. I enjoyed the character development. Overall this was a cute and fun story to read! Can’t wait for more!

I would say the cover is everything but it is only one piece to this beautiful tale. This tale is a bit slow to start and a little repetitive you can fully enjoy every aspect this has to give. It has many boxes it checked off for me - He falls first, deadly tournament (Similar to Serpents and the wings of night/Hunger Games), Slow burn, Shadow daddy, A strong willed and strong overall female character (She can save herself). My downside to this story is I wish for more emotional depth/connection between the two main characters I felt it was slow burn then rushed to get together. I loved the gothic environment of this, and the description of the environment, characters, items within this book.

I'll start by saying that the cover is gorgeous

The author did a great job creating an immersive, but easy to follow book. But what I really liked was the magic system: every witch is part of a coven and each coven worships one of the gods, thus having powers related to that god. All the information about gods, covens and powers (as well as a pronunciation guide) are found at the beginning, which can be a bit annoying for e-book readers, since there is a ton of information, but I think it's perfect for a printed book.

Regarding the characters, they are quite easy to like and additive to the story, but they are not perfect, instead they are flawed, and I think that makes them more real. The relationship between them also evolves a lot and they start trusting each other more, which makes the team stronger.

Regarding the plot, the contestants are put on an island and the last to remain alive will become the next elder, absorbing everybody's else powers, but that's actually not all. There is also a romance subplot.

Personally, I really enjoyed this book, the only issue is that there is a lot of information and it was not easy to just go back while reading on my phone.

This was the best fantasy I have read in a long time. It was a lot to take in at first with all of the gods but the author did a great job at always mentioning who each god was when they were mentioned. I really enjoyed the fmc and I was glad she spoke up about how she felt against the Elders and the sacrifices. I love how descriptive everything was like I was watching a movie, she even included a lot of smells which I thought was nice. I also loved how up until the very end it was set up to make death and Calista look like the bad guys but they are actually good which I was happy about. I am now obsessed and can’t wait for the next one!

Genre: Dark Romantasy, Dark Fantasy/Romance

An interesting story that merges the world of witches with that of the Gods. Rebecca Garcia has an amazing talent of painting an incredible picture with words. In this story, at times, it was a little too much. I was able to easily visualize the world, the characters, and their actions but sometimes the descriptions became to much my mind would wander in its path to the next moment in the story.

The premise of the story is very unique, witches whose powers mirror the powers of the six Gods they worship. Every witch comes into his or her power in their mid to late teens. Calista and her sister Ari are obligated to submit their names for the Harvest, an event that occurs every ten years. The Harvest is a sacrificial event that determines the next member of society to sit on the council of elders. The twelve witches selected will battle to the death, until only one remains. The winner absorbs the powers of those they have killed. Calista has kept her power a secret, she has the ability to turn people to ash with the touch of her hand. Her sister is her opposite with the ability to bring back life. Even though both have 'volunteered' their names, neither believes they will be selected.

The God Azkiel is the god of death. The Harvest is held in his honor with those who are sacrificed doomed to serve him as protectors of his realm. Azkiel is your stereotypical villain, unappreciated in life, a tortured soul. He is the way he is due to life circumstances. One hundred and fifty years ago, events forced him to place his siblings in a deep sleep but a prophecy stated that during the fifteeth Harvest, one of the witches sacrifice would awaken the other Gods and bring about Azkiel's ruin.

Even though I found the first half of the book to be a bit slow, there was an enormous amount of backstory and world building, the second half pick up energy and read rather quickly. I am a sucker for story in which the heroine and villain strike up a romance but Azkiel just wasn't it for me. Calista is a strong and independent lead character that was easy to get behind and cheer on. The Night of Death and Flowers is a great lazy, feet up, snuggled under a blanket, afternoon read.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Posted:
Heather's Book Nook: https://heathersreadingnook.blogspot.com/2024/07/night-of-death-and-flowers-gods-of.html
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I loved the premise of this book, but having the first four or five pages outline name pronunciation and setting up character back stories realllllyyyyy took me out of it.
Don't get me wrong, I do find this information valuable. But it was overwhelming at the start and kept taking me out of the story to go find the pronunciation guide again, so I was correctly reading the story. What was also frustrating about this is that the author introduced some parts of the story through the narrative (like the harvest) but not others....
I had to DNF really early on.

If you can get past this aspect, I think it'll be a great read for you!

I really loved the beginning of the book but unfortunately by around 30% it started dragging a bit and I didn’t enjoy it as much as I had hoped.

I’m gonna start with positive aspects of my review.
First of all I really enjoyed the writing. That’s what drew me in at the very beginning and the author really has a way with words. The writing is immersive and descriptive enough but easy to follow.

I also loved the general idea behind the story. The God of Death, deathly trials and gothic atmosphere. I truly loved the idea behind this book and I think the storyline has a lot of potential.

What didn’t work for me was unfortunately the showing and not telling. After passing the 30% mark we had a lot of repetitions that and I feel like the story lost its way a bit.

And unfortunately I didn’t feel much chemistry between two MCs. Yes, it was a slow burn but somehow it immediately went straight to insta love. I much prefer it when the relationship between the characters evolves gradually where the reader feels the tension between and sadly that’s not what happened for me here.

It was a good fantasy book with a lot of potential. Sadly it wasn’t for me but I’m sure many readers will love it so give it a try.

The tropes include:

- enemies to lovers
- dark romantasy
- deathly trials
- morally grey MMC and witchy FMC

I was drawn in by the cover and found the synopsis interesting, but this book just did not do it for me. I got 30% of the way into this book and was still uninterested and skimmed the last 70%.
- Writing Style: 2.5/5
Personally, I did not like the writing style. It came off as trying too hard to be descriptive and seemed more like the writer was trying to reach a certain word count rather than focusing on the quality of the storytelling. Too detailed on things that didn’t matter and a lot of stuff throughout the book is very repetitive. This was more of a tell than show type of writing that never gave me a vivid mental picture.

- Plot/Story: 3/5
The premise of this book seems very interesting and I was excited to read it, but it fell flat. At no point was I ever invested in this story and as a whole it felt fairly anticlimactic and was quite predictable. Again, I feel the writing is what caused the plot to struggle. From where the book starts to how it ends is intriguing, but how it was told did nothing to actually make me interested.

- World Building: 2.5/5
Honestly, I recall so little of this world and never had a good vivid picture painted in my mind of any scene in this book because the writing just seemed to lack. Personally, I feel that too much is left out in regard to Azkiels siblings and what happens and that may be why I was never quite drawn in because I never really knew what was going on. All the reader knows is Azkiel can't let his siblings wake but can't remember what they did for him to put them in the sleeping state. The tributes are chosen to fight but are never really given a reason as to why and just accept it. Then there are the elders who get the powers of all the tributes killed but never seem to use the powers after the fact, so what's the point of the harvest besides being told to do so by Azkiel. It just seems there are several plot points not completely thought through. Overall the whole way this world works and what’s driving the plot seems weakly built and had me confused most of the time or left so much information left out that it failed to provide enough information to interest me.

- Characters: 2/5
I did not care for either of the main characters. The only character I (somewhat) liked throughout the whole book was Drake who was only a side character. The vast majority of the book has you rooting for the FMC Calista and her childhood friend Drake. They finally get to the moment they kiss and both characters say it felt wrong, and that was that. Next thing you know Calista is hooking up with the God of Death (Az). The relationship between Calista and Az is supposed to be enemy to lovers, but there is hardly any change in their relationship. One second they don’t like each other (and she is literally kissing Drake) and in the next Az is helping her “calm her powers” and the next thing you know they’re hooking up and suddenly love each other. Pretty much everything between Calista and Az is the author saying they have feelings for each other, but nothing in the writing shows that or builds their relationship at all. It’s all very sudden and honestly kind of cringey. To make their relationship more convincing and able to get the reader invested, there needs to be more building of it rather than just making the characters do things.

- Overall: 2.5/5
I was excited to read this based on the synopsis and the book itself is so pretty. At no point in the book was I interested in the characters or what was happening and I cannot get into this author's writing style. If it weren’t for the fact that I had received this as an ARC I would have DNF’d this at 30%. This is only the first book in the series so there is a possibility for everything to improve in the other books, but personally based on this one I will not be continuing with the series.

I thought this book had a lot of potential! It has an interesting premise, likable characters, and unique world building. I do think it could have been better executed though. I found much of the book to be repetitive, oddly paced, and a little too prosaic. Over all a decent start, but I'm not sure I'd read more in the series if the writing didn't tighten up a bit.

Night of Death and Flowers by Rebecca L. Garcia is the start to a new series that has me completely hooked into the world created. I adore books and basically anything else that involves witches, and this book delivers exactly the kind of content I adore.

There are unique kinds of magic, and covens that revolve around the type of magic witches and warlocks have and I was super sucked in by the magic system and covens immediately. Something else that immediately intrigued me about this book, and was the initial reason (besides it involving witches) behind picking it up, was that there is a lottery system of sorts that acts as a way to select a group of individuals with magic to compete to the death against one another and act as sacrifices to the Gods.

Azkiel hooked my interest right away. With his lack of memories from before his long sleep, I needed the backstory that brought him to the present day when he plans to kill the prophesied individual who will wake his siblings. I wanted all the story on why he didn’t want his fellow Gods to be awoken as it seemed like there was so much history and strife lurking behind this character. And with his power of death and as a result inability to touch others, his tough, but lonely persona made for all kinds of intrigue.

First off I want to start by saying I do genuinely think this book/world has a lot of potential. I am so enthralled by the world, the magic, the covens, etc. But the book itself could use a bit of work to really get it there. It’s at times very redundant with characters thinking and saying the same things repeatedly. Azkiel being obsessed with Calista and her possession of his power, as well as his siblings and what he has done to them, without bringing any real new information to these ideas. It’s just reiterated time and again without providing more to the reader in the way of details. For Calista it is constantly about how unfair the ritual to induct a new elder into their numbers through the trials. I get that it’s awful but her endless repetition of it becomes so single minded and at times seems like her entire personality. It’s to the point that it’s hard to focus on the admirable parts of her character that might otherwise make her a really compelling person to read about.

Beyond that I felt like there was a whole lot telling rather than showing happening in this book. It felt at times like entire chapters were just inner monologue, particularly with Azkiel which plays into the redundancy as well, as it was often about his siblings, what he had done to them putting them into a slumber, and his focus on Calista and the prophecy she is meant to fulfill. It also made it so the plot felt rather slow because nothing seemed to be happening to further the plot for long periods with so much time being spent on inner dialogue essentially telling the reader what characters were thinking rather than actually furthering the plot through action and events. It’s not even a long book but this made it feel too long because the progression was so halted.

However there are so many things that have me hooked into this world and have me eager for the sequel to see how much better it might get. I am so enthralled by the mystery of the Gods, I want more of their background and information on their powers, why certain magics are so taboo, as well as the connection each different power has to one of the Gods. All this to say I definitely plan on picking up the next book in the series because so much is left up in the air and I really do want to see this world reach its full potential.

The Blub, the title, the cover all drew me into this book.
I was sold with the promise of:
- a deadly tournament
- Villian get's the girl
- Gods and magic
- Cryptic prophecies
- Spice 🌶🌶🌶🌶🌶

Now I feel like I need to preface that I didn't think it was a bad book, quite to contrary actually.
There was so much potential with the story and the characters, it just however fell a little... flat.

This is a dual POV of Calista and Azkiel. Azkiel is the God of Death who, for a reason he can't remember, trapped his siblings in an enchanted sleep 150 years ago. It is prophesized that the daughter of death will wake his siblings and he'll do everything in his power to stop that from happening. Calista is a witch who somehow manages to hold Azkiels' very own ethereal power (something that should not be possible), but must keep it hidden.

It was a slow read. There was so much telling of the story opposed to showing, which ultimately ended up causing it to feel like there were just so many words, but not a large amount of plot progression. There was large instances of repeated information that weren't entirely necessary (i.e. Azkiel not remembering why his siblings had to stay asleep, just that they did).

The development of the relationship between Azkiel and Calista felt rushed, despite the revelation at the end of the book. They went from despising each other to being madly lustful over the span of a few conversations. There just wasn't enough of a build up to make their relationship feel authentic.
The spice in this book was condensed to 1 scene at the end of the book, that felt forced and a little artificial. I don't think it was a necessary addition to progress the relationship between Calista and Azkiel.

There is an absolutely fantastic story hidden amongst the pages of Night of Death and Flowers. It's just waiting to be refined.

3.5⭐
The concept of this book was so promising, and the plot was interesting. However, I found that this read fell a little short in execution, character development, and dialogue. The transition from enemies to lovers was quite abrupt, and the ending felt rushed.
I didn’t feel any tension and the story didn’t make me feel anything. I’m pretty sure that if I connected with the story more I’d laugh, cry, and kick my feet but sadly the writing didn’t deliver in that regard. Also, I wish there was more action because nothing happened in the last 30%. I just feel like some of the bigger scenes were rushed while the smaller-nothing-ones were unnecessarily long.

Overall, though, it's an okay book with an interesting storyline and magic system. I think there is potential for this to be a really good series, and with the world-building/intro out of the way, I think the second book may read more smoothly.

What you can expect
🖤 Broken Family
🖤 He Falls First
🖤 Deadly Tournament
🖤 Touch Her and ☠️
🖤 Enemies to Lovers
🖤 Fantasy World Building
🖤 Amnesia
🖤 Touch Starved God
🖤 Themes of Sacrifice and Rebellion
🖤 Ancient Gods and Goddesses and Witches
🖤 Badass FMC
🖤 Dark Epic Fantasy
🖤 Fantasy Romance

Witches, Gods, Magic! Intriging begining, a little slow in the middel, but a great ending!

I need more to bond more with the maincharaters, but liked the woulrdbulding and the magic system.

This book had it all…magic, witches, monsters and dark Romance. And, beautifully written. Loved it.