This book was imaginative, haunting, and a treat to read. A darkly feminist tale that could have come from the pages of a Brothers Grimm anthology, The Witch's Heart is a must-read for anyone who enjoyed The Year of the Witching, The Witching Hour, or the works of Anne Rice in general.

This book surprised me with its touching and pragmatic portrayal of a witch who is just trying to stay out of trouble. She is living in a cave, minding her own business, when a visitor changes things. The ensuing years bring both joys and heartbreak. Her relationships are complicated, but her willingness to give of herself to improve the life of others is shown in a favourable light even when it seems to hurt her.

This book had some very clear similarities to Madeline Miller's Circe, except the end felt inescapable. I enjoyed this story and would recommend to people who love reading both women's fiction and fantasy novels.

Rating: 3/5 unique children

Format: ebook. I’d like to thank the author and Berkley Publishing Group for a copy of this ebook in exchange for an honest review.

To sum up:
This is a story with familiar characters and events from Norse mythology seen in a new way. Angrboda is a very old witch who has been cast out of the world of Norse Gods after being burned for displeasing Odin. Although she somehow survives the burning, she goes into hiding in a remote forest where none other than Loki brings her back her unburned heart. Thus begins an unlikely romance between the witch and Loki. While Angrboda and Loki try to find some happiness together in their secluded home, Angrboda can help but feel a mounting wariness about the future that Odin wanted her to prophesize for him, a looming disaster called Ragnarok. Will Angrboda be able to survive the Gods and protect her family from Ragnarok? is the looming question throughout the book, and you’ll have to read it to find out!

What I enjoyed:
I really enjoyed the world of the Norse Gods. I have always been fascinated with their myths and legends and I enjoyed Gornichec’s imagining of these well-known characters. I thought that she used them and well-known events around Ragnarok in interesting ways that felt both epic and personal to the story and characters. In general, I liked Angrboda's personality, but I had some trouble connecting emotionally to her.

What was meh:
Unfortunately, I had some issues with the overall plot and storytelling style. I just felt that there wasn’t really enough meat to the story to keep me engaged for most of the book. It was really difficult to tell where the story was going until Ragnarok is mentioned, which isn’t until quite a ways into the book. Most of the book is told in a sort of meandering, journal entry style, spanning many years Angrboda's life. During this part of the book, I had a hard time staying engaged because I really didn't know where the story was going and what the stakes were. When the threat of Ragnarok becomes part of the plot, the story felt rushed and a little anticlimactic. I wanted to grow attached to the characters introduced but never really was able to because I couldn’t tell whether they were good or bad, and had a hard time forming an emotional connection to them. Ultimately, I didn’t feel a real strong narrative thread to tie all the pieces of the story together, it felt more like a series of events that happened until the final scenes could take place.

Overall, this story reminded me a bit of Circe in its story-telling style, so if you liked that one you might give this one a try! I love the Norse aspects of the book but had difficulty with the plot. I think the prose itself isn’t bad, I just had a hard time becoming emotionally invested which is pretty crucial for me, so just giving this one three stars.

Wow - I absolutely adored this book. While it uses Norse mythology strongly through the book the author does an amazing job of adding flesh and depth to characters that are often overlooked or not as developed in the lore. The book was heartbreaking at times and really grabbed you. This is not only a love story, but also one of self discovery and battling your own beliefs. It was super realistic considering the time and setting of the book in terms of gender roles. Her acceptance of her fate and fight for her children was admirable and believable. Angrboda is a complex character with well developed depth. Her relationship with Loki was well detailed and unlike other lore you understand his nature a lot more based on the various aspects of his character that the author presents us with. Skadi was a beautiful character but I feel like we didn't get enough depth to her and to see her inside her motives and needs however i greatly enjoyed the ending. Highly recommend this read to everyone who loves mythology and fantasy as its beautifully woven in this story.

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing for an advanced copy of this book! For fan’s of Madeline Miller and mythology, this book will take you on a searing ride through the life of a nameless witch reborn repeatedly in the flames of her enemies. With plenty of love, heartache, and fire, Gornichec weaves a tale you won’t easily forget.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

What a stunning debut THE WITCH'S HEART is. And this pronouncement comes from someone whose knowledge of Norse mythology is limited to the Marvel movies. Despite my lack of familiarity with the subject matter, I loved the story, the settings, and the characters.

Gornichec seems to have taken many of the barely-mentioned women of the Norse myths and fleshed out their stories. She has woven them together rather seamlessly, making for quite a satisfying tale. Angrboda is the witch of the title, and she is a fierce magician who has been wronged by the gods time and time again. In what almost seems like her mind's protective instinct, she doesn't remember much of her past lives as she sets out anew, alone in a forbidding landscape. She isn't alone for long, though, and her capacity for love and compassion bring a few needy souls to her cave's threshold. As she forges ahead in her new life, she finds herself once again linked to the gods by her unlikely relationship with Loki (yes, that Loki). Even more surprising to her, she soon finds herself a mother to three children, all of whom flout convention. As her vision of the future comes to pass, she strives to protect her family the only way she knows how.

I liked many things about this novel. Angrboda: her fierce protectiveness, her common-sense practicality, her touching vulnerability. The banter between Angrboda and Loki, the banter between Angrboda and Skadi. Hel's DGAF weirdness and obsessive knitting. The story moved along at a good clip, and I was always eager to pick up the book.

THE WITCH'S HEART is satisfying tale of women's empowerment and motherhood. Highly recommended!

3.5 Stars

Not a lot happened in the 1st half of the book and while that's usually a negative, it was my favorite part of the book. The 2nd half felt all over the place and really dragged on. The <i>Circe</i> comparison is accurate for me as I was also underwhelmed by it. I love mythology and retellings so both should have been right up my alley and in the beginning, I loved them but by the end I was struggling to stay interested. The portrayal of Loki was great and Marvel has clearly ruined me because I couldn't not picture Tom Hiddleston.

That being said, the cover is absolutely gorgeous and the author's writing is enjoyable.

Thanks so much to Netgalley and the publisher for the e-arc.

This is a Norse mythology retelling in the same vain as Madeline Miller's Greek mythology retelling of Circe. It is an approachable and humanistic view of a lesser-known mythic witch, Angrboda. She is only known as the mother of monsters Fenrir, Jörmungand, and Hel, who are involved in Ragnarök. She doesn't always get the spotlight in Norse retellings, so here we are presented with her life as she would have lived it. It begins with her retreat to an old forest, the Ironwood, after refusing to teach Odin what he wanted to know. Here she is quickly found by Loki, the Trickster God who returns the heart that Odin and the Aesir tore from her body. Loki keeps returning to the Ironwood, and overtime they fall in love with one another. Through Angroboda's eyes, you feel what it's like to be in a relationship with the trickster and to birth and raise their children. Angrboda turns into a very devoted mother who struggles with a father who seems much less so. And as a seer-witch, Angrboda's struggles with the future that her children are destined to bring.

I definitely recommend if you enjoy modern myth retellings, especially if you enjoy Madeline Miller's books. If I have on qualm in my comparison to Miller, it's that Miller's writing is a little bit more poetic, but Gornichec here makes a strong debut nonetheless.

Thanks to the publisher for providing a free eARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this book. I finished it in about 3 and a half weeks... I was always on edge to see what was next...

A witch from the edge of the Ironwood forest refuses to teach Odin "seid", a magic that allows one to travel out of the body and divine the future. Odin offers to impart knowledge about runes, but she still turns him down. In retaliation Odin spears her heart and burns her three times. Loki finds her heart and tracks her to Jotunheim, the land of the giants since he is easily bored and finds her interesting. Her memory is mostly gone, but she remembers how to make remedies and she names herself Angrboda meaning, proclaimer of sorrows. She and Loki develop a friendship and she meets the huntress Skadi and they become trading partners. Eventually Loki and Angrboda become lovers and have three children: Hel who becomes the ruler of the Norse underworld, Fenrir a giant wolf , and Jormungand, the Midgard Serpent. Loki has to divide his time in Asgard with the Norse Gods and his other wife. Angrboda has to fight Odin and the other Gods and Goddesses to protect her children with the unreliable Loki torn between worlds. Angrboda is a strong, sympathetic woman who has a very minor role in Norse literature, but is larger than life here thanks to the author. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the digital copy in exchange for an honest review. I raise a glass of mead.

The witch, Angrboda, has been speared and burned three times then reborn each time. This third time, she cannot remember much and runs into a forest to heal. There, a man approaches her and calls himself Loki. She falls in love, becomes his wife, and gives birth to three children. With her eldest a girl, she uses magic to bring her back from death. The two boys aren't human. They stay safe in the woods out of sight of Odin’s all-seeing eye, in a cave she had made into a comfortable abode. Her prophetic powers are returning, and Angrboda begins to realize the dangers to her life and her family.

I really enjoyed this retelling/reworking of a part of Norse mythology connected to Loki and Angrboda and their children, reworking other bits of the myths from the Prose Edda and others to flesh out the story and the characters. I sympathized with Angrboda, her children: Hel, Fenrir, Jormungand, and yes, even for Loki. If you've read the myth and about Ragnarök, then you know how it ends, but there is more to this story than what the mythology gives us, with an ending I did not expect.

If you enjoy Norse mythology, the Marvel Comic version and the movie, and good high fantasy, you will enjoy this novel.

The Witch's Heart by Genevieve Gornichec, an interesting read. A story of the Aesir, of Loki and Thor and all your other favorites told from a slightly outside perspective.

In this reimagining of Norse mythology, we follow Angrboda, a giantess who has run away from the gods after being killed by them three times before reviving herself. When Loki comes to return her heart to her, they begin a difficult relationship that lasts for centuries. We follow Angrboda's relationships, her experience with motherhood, her discovering her past, and how far she will go to protect the ones she loves.

I think the first thing one should know before going into this is that Gornichec takes some liberties as to Angrboda's identity when it comes to Norse canon. Angrboda is Loki's jotun mate that mothers three of his children, yes, but her also being Gullveig (the witch that is credited with beginning the war between the Aesir and Vanir) is a very unpopular theory. There are a couple of other minor figures in Norse mythology who are credited with being Angrboda. This is interesting because she's a mostly forgotten figure (basically just a footnote in a poem) and that is explored in the novel, but it's good to know the context.

Personally, I was fairly unattached to this book. It reminded me of Circe by Madeline Miller, which I had also felt detached from, but not as focused or purposeful. As to what I did like, I thought it was a really interesting take on Norse myth to combine the identities of the characters I mentioned before. I really loved the parts that were about Angrboda's children with Loki and I was emotionally attached to them, particularly the eldest, and wanted everything to work out for them. However, I felt that there were some issues with this that took away from the whole. For one, the time scale of this was so large that things pass by too quickly. It's written as if it is a myth, the way a short story would be written where events happen one sentence after the other rather than us being shown it, but for an entire novel. Years pass without warning and there's a large number of plot points that are told to us or our protagonist instead of experiencing it. I also thought that for the most part, maybe until the last section of the book Angrboda is a very passive protagonist. Things happen to those around her until the very end. I also thought that this book does not treat heterosexual and homosexual relationships equally, the latter being much less explored and almost feeling forced. Overall, I found that this was easy to get through, but I didn't feel much either way for the main character who is very much the central piece of this rather than any plot. I think that if this was told from multiple character's points of view, stakes/tensions/relationships/etc. might have been heightened.

I loved this re-telling of Norse mythology. The story drew me in and I hung on to every word, which is rare for me since I tend to be a fast reader. I enjoyed the way the author gave her own life to the characters that are well-known.

I'm always a fan of mythology, so that was my initial interest, but I have to say I'm not as familiar with Norse mythology so I don't know if I got as much out of the story as I could have. Don't get me wring, I don't think a working knowledge of Norse mythology is needed to enjoy this book - as I said, I'm very much a novice, but I had a fun time - but I do think it would have enhanced the story for me. Though I did connect with the hopeful core of the story and that was more than enough to carry me through.

There’s one thing that seems to connect a lot of book nerds: a love of mythology. Be it Greco-Roman, Egyptian, Norse, or any and all others, the ancient gods provided a whole different world to play in. In recent years, more and more literature has taken to exploring modern themes in stories of old, especially when it comes to characters that haven’t gotten much of the spotlight. It is in that spirit that The Witch’s Heart hits bookshelves, unraveling the tale of Angrboda.

For those who didn’t obsess over Norse mythology (or read Neil Gaiman’s recent book on it, which I do recommend), Angrboda is a witch and giant who ends up married to Loki, the trickster god. She bore three children: the wolf Fenrir, the world serpent Jormungand, and the ruler of the underworld Hel. Very little is written about her in the traditional texts, but author Genevieve Gornichec manages to spin a tale of a powerful but lonely woman who has the misfortune of being a seer.

I will admit that at first, I figured this was going to be sort of in the same vein as Madeline Miller’s hit Circe. After all, both follow a witch who lives in isolation who plays a small, but central part in a larger mythological story and generally involves romance. But let me be clear: The Witch’s Heart is a powerful and heartbreaking story all its own and needs no other influences to stand on.

The main character, Angrboda, is a deeply sympathetic lead. A witch who practices "seid", the ability to see into the future, she is burnt on a pyre three times by the Aesir, a.k.a the Norse gods led by Odin, and having her heart removed. She flees to Jotunheim, the land of giants, where she is found by Loki, who gives her back her heart. The two fall in love, though Loki often leaves to go antagonize the gods, leaving Angrboda to fend for herself. She meets Skadi, another giantess and hunter, and her cousin Gerd, both of whom come to help and trade with Angrboda throughout the book.

I absolutely adore the depictions of Angrboda's children, especially Hel. As future queen of the dead, she is her father's favorite, enamored with his stories of the Aesir. There's just something about watching this little girl, strange and half-dead as she is, growing up as shy and curious. Her love of her pet goats is particularly sweet as well as serving as tragic foreshadowing of her being cast down into the underworld. Fenrir and Jorgumand don't get as much development, but that makes sense given they don't have much to do other than kill gods during Ragnarok.

Gornichec's portrayal of Loki is also well done. He's a trickster through and through, and even though it's made clear how smart he is, he never seems to think things through. He's sympathetic to a point, and even when you know what's coming, you almost don't expect his to betray his family, right up until the moment he does. There's no questioning the love of his family, but it's his nature to be chaos and that comes across really well.

The book has spaces where it lags, especially in-between when Jormungand is born and when Angrboda first encounters Loki's other wife Sigyn, and between Angrboda's fourth death and her preparations for Ragnarok. However, the parts the come inbetween more than make up for it. The scene where Sigyn and Angrboda meet for the first time, and Angrboda punishes Sigyn with visions of the future after she calls the children "monsters" is visceral. But that's nothing compared to the scene in which the Aesir come to kill Angrboda and take her children away, which is so heart wrenching and tragic that I couldn't bear to put it down after that point. 

I will say that the romance between Skadi and Angrboda gets hinted at a lot, but doesn't get quite enough time once they actually express their feelings for one another. Not that this is necessary, but it does feel odd when most of the first half is dedicated to Angrboda's relationship to Loki. I'm not saying that the whole book had to be about romance,  since the focus is on the life of Angrboda, but they are supposed to be together for three years of winter and it goes by in like 10 or 15 pages. I would have liked more development is what I'm saying.

The Witch's Heart is available for purchase now at any major book retailer.

I really enjoyed this one, although I did keep picturing Tom Hiddleston's Loki. This is no fault of the author, who did a great job describing a blond, freckled, scarred Loki. Definitely recommended for fans of fantasy and Norse mythology. I did a lot of Googling while reading this, and am definitely more familiar now with some of less famous members of the pantheon. Thank you very much to Berkley Publishing Group/Ace and NetGalley for the ARC!

The Witch's Heart tells the story of Angrboda, briefly mentioned in the Poetic Edda and Prose Edda as the mother of three monsters. Gornichec fleshes her out further, choosing to conflate her with a number of Norse figures: Gullveig/Heiðr, a witch associated with the Æsir–Vanir War; the jotunn Hyndla from a story with Freyja; Hyrrokkin, a wolf-riding giantess at Baldr's funeral; and the giantess in the Ironwood who raised wolves ("the kinfolk of Fenrir").

That sounds like a lot happens in this book, and it does! The book covers a huge span of Angrboda's immortal life, right up until Ragnarok at the end. But while there's a lot of plot, Angrboda's character is remarkably static for most of the story. As Gullveig, she suffered unbelievable trauma. But once she's remade herself as Angrboda, she hides in a cave in the Ironwood, interacts with Loki and Skadi and Gerd, and bears her three children. (And that's the first half of the book!)

I wanted a little more nuance and agency from Gornichec's protagonist. Angrboda never questions the nature of her monstrous children--instead she loves them unconditionally. She puts up with far too much of Loki's crap. She finally reciprocates Skadi's feelings, but not until over three-quarters of the story has elapsed. I enjoyed my read, but Angrboda's passiveness became increasingly frustrating to me as a reader.

In Short: Did you like Circe by Madeline Miller? You'll probably like A Witch's Heart, and Gornichec has clearly done her research. I just wish that Angrboda had been a slightly more active protagonist.

Mother witch Angrboda finds herself at a crossroad when her family and friends cross fate in this adult fantasy novel.

The Witch’s Heart is a reimagining of a very obscure character within Norse mythology, Angrboda. It focuses on her romantic relationship with Loki and their three unusual children – the wolf Fenrir, the Midgard serpent Jörmungand, and the ruler of the dead Hel. The banter between her and Loki immediately captivates, and their tumultuous relationship entices readers along. Don’t be fooled – this is not a romance, it’s a survival story about one woman’s absolute determination to keep the ones she loves safe from a terrible prophecy. Lots of romantic elements and tone, but not an actual romance.

While I can appreciate all of the elements of the story, I found myself completely divorced from the emotions of it. I felt very similar in regards to Madeline Miller’s Circe – emotionally unaffected by the character’s arc and somewhat confused by the lore. Many readers loved Circe, and those readers will probably love this story too. I think it’s time for me to admit mythological retellings are not my thing.

tl;dr Others will most likely fall in love with this interesting reimagining of Norse lore, but it’s not for me.

The Witch's heart is a story that unfolds in the world of mythology. From gods such as Loki and Thor to the Nine Worlds and witchcraft, the elements of the story are familiar. Based on what I had heard about this book's release, I had high hopes to be more of a literary work, but unfortunately I found the story wanting. The structure of the story is confusing. I had a hard time relating to the Witch and her actions. I didn't see a character arch for any of the characters. I would give point to the author for creativity and an alive imagination. The story is unpredictable, the pattern unique, and for my personal taste, it was too far from the traditional story telling craft.