First of all thank you to NetGalley and Rebecca L. Garcia for the eARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

THE PLOT:
Calista, a witch wielding an ethereal power reserved only for the god of death, decides to put an end to the Harvest, a deadly competition that has been around for the past 150 years.

Azkiel, the God of Death, returns after over a century. Seeking to stop an ancient prophecy, foretelling his downfall at the hands of Calista, from playing out.

In Dahryst there are six covens and each coven worships a different god or goddess. Each coven is blessed by a god or goddess with diluted forms of their magic, meaning each witch or warlock is gifted with a magical ability, relevant to their coven, that they may inherit and practice. Each coven has up to three powers that can be siphoned from the god or goddess of their coven, except for that god’s ethereal power.

Elders hold the power of all six covens, giving them enough power to protect the witches and warlocks against humans (their sworn enemies).

The Harvest comes around every 10 years and is a deadly competition to determine who will become the new Elder. There are three stages to the Harvest: The Offering, whereby volunteers take part in a blood ritual to put their names forward to be chosen to take part; The Choosing, which takes place in Ennismore as it overlooks Tenenocti Island, where twelve witches and warlocks are chosen by the God of Death himself to participate; and The Harvest, where the twelve that are chosen are sent to Tenenocti Island to fight to the death until only one remains, thereby becoming the new Elder.

During the Harvest, secrets are uncovered which force Calista and Azkiel to form an alliance, much to the annoyance of Calista’s best friend Drake and her sister Arabella.
‘In a world where every action can tip the scales, will they fall into salvation or ruin?’

The path ahead holds deceit, passion, betrayal and heartbreak…

POSITIVES💚

To start off with there is a list of trigger warnings, which are as follows - graphic violence, human sacrifice, deaths, blood and gore, religious oppression, profanity, graphic sexual content, snake bite, physical parental abuse, choking, drugging and poisoning.
I love a book with a glossary and this one in particular goes into detail about the gods/goddesses and their powers; the covens, who they worship and which powers they may inherit; the locations within the story; the creatures, where they originate from and what they do; the botanicals, where they’re found and what they’re used for; currency; rituals; tournaments; celebrations etc. All of this was super helpful when I felt a bit lost with the world building.
There is also a pronunciation guide which is also very helpful when starting a new book and being introduced to multiple characters, places, creatures etc.
I love the unique magic system within this book and the fact that each coven has magic from different gods or goddesses, which is broken down into specific magical abilities for each witch or warlock.
This book is a delightful mixture of:
✅dark fantasy
✅enemies to lovers
✅slow burn romance
✅witches/warlocks
✅gods/goddesses
✅shadow daddy MMC
✅badass FMC
✅and a sprinkle of spice✨
Something I love about this story is that Calista and Azkiel contrast each other so well, yet it also feels like they have been destined to find each other since the beginning of time. There is certainly chemistry between the two that makes it an exciting read.
I’m a sucker for a book with dual POV and this has exactly that. I love switching between the two main characters and seeing their thoughts and feelings laid out. It gives the story much more perspective and allows us to see both sides. It also helps to paint a picture about each character in that little bit more detail, that you simply would not get if the story was written from one perspective alone.
I feel that the world building in the start of the book was great and the story didn’t feel rushed. It gave the gothic fantasy vibes that I was hoping for and had an almost eeriness to it that kept me hooked.

NEGATIVES💔

An honest review wouldn’t be that without the need for some criticism, so to begin with I’d like to touch on the large amount of typos/grammatical errors. I understand that I read the ARC and not the final copy so some mistakes were to be expected, however the sheer amount of errors within the book made it very hard for me to follow at times. I often had to reread sentences and piece together what was happening. This being said, I have not read the final copy so these errors have probably been corrected.
I did feel as though some of the writing was a bit ‘flowery’ and that many words had been replaced with another word from the thesaurus, often unnecessarily. Not only that but towards the middle and end of the story, it started to feel very repetitive and I was starting to lose interest due to this. It also felt as though the writing got progressively more rushed throughout the book (as mentioned earlier in my review the beginning of the book did not feel rushed).
There was a ‘twist’ in the story, which I personally felt was quite predictable, so it didn’t have the impact that I think it was intended to.
I also found myself having to skip back and forth to the glossary to remind myself of things within the story as I was feeling a little bit lost at times (although I suppose this is why a glossary is always helpful and why it is there in the first place).
There was a lot of internal monologue in the story which did take away from the story itself and again there was the repetitions of the monologues themselves.
Many endings of the chapters were ‘fade to black’, causing the next chapter to feel like it jumped to a different scene. Using this ending once or twice would have been adequate.
Something I feel would have added more depth to the story would have been giving Arabella or Drake a chapter from their perspective, as they play an integral role in the way the story unfolds but we did not get to experience anything from them firsthand.
It would also have been interesting to have more perspective or background on the elders and in particular, Calista’s father, as it feels as though we know very little about any of them and the story behind the feud between humans and witches/warlocks. Following on from this the threat of humans is mentioned within the story but there are no scenes that depict this threat as far as I can remember, so it would have been good to have a scene where the humans try to harm some of the witches, thereby emphasising the need for The Harvest.

Overall, I did enjoy the story and I think it has so much potential to be a really great book with some minor tweaking.

#nightofdeathandflowers #netgalley

Witchy vibes, dual POV, enemies to lovers. All over, some great themes and features. Really enjoyed this book. The world building is great and the storyline keeps you hooked. Would definitely recommend.

This book was so different than what is currently trending on BookTok, yet it was a mix of all things I enjoy.
This has a mix of dark fantasy with a dystopian witchy society, with deathy trials, a unique coven system, herbalism, adventure, fear, and fate... all with a romance that is slowly unfolding.

This romantasy had everything I wanted
-Dual POV
-Death Personification
-Amnesia
-Prophecy
-Enemies to lovers
-Witches
-World building
-Gods
-Snarky badass FMC
-“Shadow daddy” MMC
-Deadly Competition

Garcia did a great job with the world building, it felt like a fully fleshed out world. My only complaint in this regard is I did feel like there was a lot of info dumping at the start.
Cali was such a fun heroine. She was unapologetically herself and unafraid of showing it. She’s never one to shy away from a fight or conflict and I absolutely loved her.
Azkiel was not what I was expecting for the God of Death and that was a welcome surprise. The mystery surrounding Azkiel and his siblings kept me guessing and I really enjoyed watching how the story played out.

Thank you NetGalley for this eARC in exchange for an honest review

⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 rounded up to ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

First of all, I would like to thank Rebecca Garcia and NetGalley for an ARC copy of this amazing book!

I am WOWED by this book! This is a Dark Fantasy, set in a world full of Witches, Warlocks, and warring Gods. Every decade, there is a sacrificial tournament held where witches and warlocks fight to death to appease the gods and show their gratefulness for their freedom. WITCHY HUNGER GAMES !!!!

I’m actually blown away by Rebecca’s world building and character development skills. I need more of this world ASAP. The premise of this book is such a unique take on “deadly games and trials,” and I loved it! The magic system is so unique and the main conflicts are so captivating. Calista and Azkiel are such dense, well built characters and I cannot wait to see where this story goes.

I struggled a little bit through the mid section as it continued to go forward. The story dragged a little bit after the first main conflict resolution, and lost my focus for a while, but the ending? WOW! Talk about being left on the edge of your seat! By the end of the book I was fully reinvested, moving quickly and unable to put it down.

This is for you if you love:
Gods & Goddesses, Deadly Tournaments, Villian Gets the Girl, Soulmates, He Falls First, Betrayal, Shadow Daddy MMCs

I really enjoyed this book. Anything that involves magic, ancient gods, covens, hunger game like competitions and manages to throw in decent slow burn. Yes please! I really enjoyed the world building; I thought it was written well and that it was complex and beautifully imagined. I loved the island and the way that the magic system worked to keep people off it until the harvest. The magic system in itself was by favorite aspect of the book. The different powers that the covens could inherit from their covens God or Goddess were really neat and I liked that there were only three, so it wasn't overly complex. The ethereal magic was really cool, and I thought the Harvest was also really interesting. I liked the characters; I think that there was some development that was written well. There was one thing that kind of got me, and it was the number of times that Cali ground her teeth so hard she was surprised they didn't shatter. Not a deal breaker by any means but definitely something that I picked up on. I enjoyed the story line and the concept of the feuding gods; I do like a good stolen memory trope and this one was executed well. I also thought that the reference guide in the back was a nice touch. There most definitely better be a book two!

Dahryst is supposed to be a safe place for witches - those with magic - to hide away from the rest of the world… that is, until the Harvest rolls around. Once every ten years, young adults are pushed to “volunteer” themselves in a fight to the death, in honor of the God of Death, Azkiel. Calista and her friend, Drake, are determined to end the horrors of The Harvest by destroying the sacred ritual statues but fail, and in turn, draw the attention of Azkiel himself. With his return, a prophecy is revealed that may signal the end of the God of Death - or of Calista herself, who has been hiding the forbidden power of Death from the rest of her family and village.

Night of Death and Flowers twines together a new fantasy world with interesting characters and magical elements. The novel gives the feel of a challenge along the lines of the Hunger Games with magical components. Add in the enemies to lovers vibes and you’re set up for a full blown romantasy. I did appreciate the glossary and cheat sheet of the major gods and powers and characters.

I did find that I was thrown into the world with almost no introduction to it, so I desperately in need of the reference glossary and found myself skipping back and forth to remind myself who was who and who did what. I also found the character interactions were a little stilted and abrupt, and wasn’t too enthused on the abrupt turn from enemies to lovers with our main characters.

Recommended if you like fantasy, Romantasy, and magical elements.

Okay so I gave this book a 3 star rating. I didn’t hate it by any means but it was not my favorite either. This book really reminded me to much of Hunger Games mixed with Divergent. Then it felt like that through those dystopian novels into the dark fantasy. I may be a little bias as I have never really be a fan of those two series. There was also a decent amount of typos throughout this book as well.

What I liked about this book was the unique world and character magic this author created. I really liked how the gods powers were split up between the witch’s in clans. But I also thought it was really awesome the way she took it further and broke each gods power down ever further giving everyone different kinds of abilities within their clans.

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes Hunger Games and or Divergent. As well as to those you like witchy books and maybe looking for a different kinds of witch novel as well. I dont think this was a bad book just not for me and if the typos get fixed i think it would make even my own rating a bit higher.

I have mixed feelings. Why? Because this book had so much potential. I truly wish I'd enjoyed it more as it started amazingly.

The main problem for me was the continuous repetitions played throughout the book. Okay if you said it once, okay if you say the same thing twice. Even thrice I can understand. But after? No, it hindered the reading enormously for me.

Another small problem that I found was how the glossary was made. Okay with the name and pronunciations- but all the small extras? I would have preferred learning about this world as I turned page, instead of having a lore being dumped from page one like that.

This truly had so much potential. A better version of Lightlark in terms of plot and maybe even writing (which taking out the fact that it was wayyy to much repetitive was even a bit too flowery where maybe a dialogue would have been better). This isn't a bad book. And I'll probably read book two when it comes out. I just hope that all the small things I found that hindered my experience while reading will have been taken care off.

There were even come editing mistakes. But I blame this on the ARC as it's not the finally copy that will be released to the public.

Loved this story!! Well written with an immersive world building aspect! I can not wait for the second book to come out! Had me on the edge of my seat every step of the way and the twist did not disappoint!

"Night of Death and Flowers" is a dark fantasy featuring gods, witches, and a deadly tournament. While the world-building initially required some adjustment, the glossary at the beginning helped clarify important details. The story itself was compelling with intriguing plot twists. I particularly enjoyed the evolving dynamics of the main characters. It's the first book in a duology, ending on a suspenseful note that leaves readers eagerly anticipating the sequel.

Thank you so much for the ARC!
Overall 2.5 stars. This really has so many elements that I love in stories: gothic atmosphere, gods, magic, death… However, the writing really needs a few more rounds of editing. It’s very much tell not show, which made it so hard to immerse into the story and connect to the characters. The middle really lost me and felt so repetitive, and the spice scene went from 0 to 100, so much so that I was left so confused. This has so much potential!

This was just not for me. It was way too "Hunger Games" but with magic, which was not what I expected. I also couldn't really get invested in either of the main characters. They just both didn't do it for me, and their inner monologues were really repetitive (particularly Azkiel's).

Not only is the title beautiful but it’s a stunning book I thoroughly enjoyed it. I highly recommend.

This was one of my most anticipated reads of the year, I was absolutely ecstatic when I got my hands on this arc! However, after finishing it today I came away with a few mixed feelings, which is a shame given how much I was looking forward to this read.

I’ll be honest with you, this book had SO much potential and I really mean it when I say this. There was SO much to love about it. It had all the tropes and themes I enjoyed; slow burn, enemies to lovers, gifted magic from gods, the eerie worldbuilding, some mild horror, a stabby bad-ass MFC and a Brooding Grumpy Morally Grey MMC. However, this just wasn’t enough to detract from the hiccups that occurred when I was reading it.



Firstly, let’s touch on the world building. The world building for me, personally was great. I loved this whole dark and eerie vibe that was going on, and it all felt quite haunting to me. One of the things that intrigued me most was the magic system and it did have a uniqueness to it which I did enjoy. There are six witch covens and each are gifted powers from one of the Gods they are chosen by (so a fraction of their power should we say) and this is then passed on to live through generations. Every Ten years a sacrifice is made during the Harvest where people are selected to compete to determine a new elder. Elders earn the power of all 6 covens which makes them powerful enough to protect the land from humans (our enemies in this case) who persecute witches. I did like how this was set out very early on in the book because it does set the scene for some things that follow. However, too truths can exist at the same time. Although I loved it, I did find it somewhat info dumpy as we do jump into how events unfold quite quickly in this book.




Throughout the story we focus on four main characters - Azkiel, Calista, Arabella and Drake. It’s worth mentioning that this book is a duel POV so we experience through Azkiel and Calista. However, I do wonder if we would’ve benefited from having a POV from Arabella or even Drake, given how intertwined the four of them end up being within the narrative. We do get introduced to some side characters, although I feel that some of them weren't that necessary to explore to expand the story. However, saying this, there were some side characters that I felt we needed to know more about. For example; Calista's father plays an important role, especially in the connection with the Elders and I don’t think we explored that enough. Also, do ALL the Elders agree with this sacrificial harvest in the first place? This all seemed a bit unclear.



Unfortunately, there were a few things that I found myself having hiccups about. The pace itself was a little bit inconsistent, there were times certain scenes felt really rushed. I also felt the enemies to lovers was a bit disjointed? In addition to this, there were several moments were more telling than showing was going on. I often felt we were being 'told' how the characters felt which became a bit too descriptive rather than being shown what the character was experiencing? This at times made me feel really emotionally uninvested in the characters, which was such a shame because I actually really thought Azikiel and Calista were characters that contrasted each other really well with their differences. They could both be externally deep characters with lots of showing rather than thinking. To me, they just weren't fleshed out enough in terms of being able to experience how the characters felt rather than being told.


As other people have also mentioned, one thing I found myself getting really irritated with is HOW in their head these characters were? There was just so much poetic prose that it just got too repetitive. For example, every other chapter there were certain thoughts or reflections that either Azkiel or Calista would have and they would be repeated again and again and again to the point that it would become a bit overwhelming and would pull me out of the story. There was just so much more internal monologuing going on than external monologuing which caused the story to drag as it did not contribute towards any character development. Also, whilst I do not typically let grammatical errors impact how I read an ARC there were just too many in this ARC for me that I found myself having to go back and re-read some pages. Others have also mentioned this as well, particularly pronoun switching which just felt unpolished even though it’s easy to resolve.



When we get to island, it starts all feeling a bit Hunger Games and there were so many moments I was immersed when the action started to ramp up. However, between these action moments there were just back and forth internal monologues that happens through Azkiel and Calista POV. This impacts any external dialogue because it feels so little around all the internal monologuing going on. This makes the plot unfold at such a slow pace, once again - so much telling and not enough showing.

 The magic, the world building and the plot DOES have potential - the plot itself is well thought out, it just lacks the execution it deserves to make it feel polished.

The tropes as I’ve said above are literally some of my favourite tropes. I unfortunately just kept getting drawn out of the story because of the chaotic internal monologuing that kept happening, which made the plot keep losing direction.

I did feel the chemistry between Calista and Azkiel. I felt like they were to people who’d been destined their whole life just to find each other. They were both starved of things in their own lives in different ways. They had this magnetic energy between them, not just because of the magic but who they were as people and because of the experiences each of them had. That’s not to say I didn’t have issues with Calista’s character at times - there were moments where she was a little TOO headstrong, and is very determined to not accept help but on the flip side to this Azkiel also has that essence about him, the tough bravado that nobody can crack his exterior and see the person that he really is (this once again comes down to being told about it and him not actually giving us his experience). There were moments were it ventured into the ‘insta-lust’ which I do feel could’ve been avoided. The slow burn was…very very slow to be fair!



Also there were a lot of ‘falls asleep’ or ‘fade to black’ moments to transition into the next chapter which I didn’t think was great because things tended to jump a bit after those moments happened.

 To be honest, I’m still really undecided about Calista’s sister. I feel like I didn’t learn anything about her at all, even during the chapters she was in so I’m hoping her character fleshes out in the next book to be honest.

I will definitely be picking up the sequel of this book because I really do what to know how it unfolds, and I’m interested enough in the story overall. Like I’ve said, most of my comments are really around elements that can be tweaked and polished. I’d also like to state that this review is entirely based on the ARC I received, so I do not know whether any of these things were amended in the final publish.

I usually don’t love witchy books but I loved this!! I enjoyed the duel POV, especially Azkiel. His entrance alone I loved. His plot line was very intriguing and the while entire reason I continued the book. While I did enjoy this, it felt a little slow with lots of worldbuilding.

Calista and Death’s story was exciting from beginning to end. Witchy books are not typically my go to books but this one’s story intrigued me. Glad I chose to read it. I received an ARC of this book. I would recommend this book to romantasy readers, especially those who love the enemies to lovers trope.

I loved it! I enjoyed the dual pov between Calista and Azkiel. In the middle, for a second I felt a bit bored, but I still enjoyed, it was good :) I don't want to spoil anything, but if you are a fan of (spicy) romantasy, you will love this book for sure.

Thanks to NetGalley and Victory Editing for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my own opinion.

I absolutely loved this book, a dark romance between witches and vengeful gods. The world development and the characters were beautifully done, and the glossary at the beginning of the book was the perfect touch. The beginning of the book was a slow burn, but well worth sticking through. I found Calista's character to be refreshing as she was a bad ass but still had a moral compass. I love a book that has me invested in each of the characters and this book truly draws you in. Even as I began putting the pieces together I couldn't wait to see how it was played out, now I just have to wait for book two. But in the meantime I will definitely be checking out more of Rebecca L Garcia's books! Night of Death and Flowers is definitely one of my favorite books I have read this year.
Thank you netgalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

ARC Book Review: Night of Death and Flowers by Rebecca Garcia ✨🖤

I absolutely loved this book, the vibes were immaculate and I loved the story. This book is filled with magic, prophecies, witches and gods - all of which I am obsessed with!

The story is set within a safe haven for Witches Darhyst - where every ten years, a tournament takes places to declare a new elder.

This book has dual-POV between Calista - an anti-heroine witch from Darhyst and, Azkiel the God of Death. If you’re looking for a new shadow-daddy Azkiel has just joined the group!! 🖤 Night of Death and Flowers is a dark, fantasy romance with amazing world building and storytelling which just keeps you engaged!

Themes from the book:
✨ Unique magic system
🖤 Dark fantasy romance
🌶️ Spice
❤️‍🔥 Witches and gods
📖 Amazing world building
🔮 Prophecies

Thank you NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review