I really liked this book, it had a lot of things going for it: Geralt-like hero, strong, capable witches, great enemies to lovers romance, smirky villain, lots of action, etc. The writing is very well done and transports you directly into the story from the very beginning. I will say I only have two real negatives: some things happened in a very convenient way to work out for the characters, but it wasn't too bad, and I wanted a lot more depth and backstory to the Witch Collector (which I am hoping we get in the next book). I will definitely be continuing this series to see what happens and get more time with our characters.

This was a well-written book with interesting characters and a decent premise. I was expecting some magical content and supernatural vibe and this one delivered.

Thank you #NetGalley and City Owl Press for giving the opportunity to read this.

#TheWitchCollector #NetGalley

LOVED this magical book that bewitched me right from the start. I couldn’t put this one down! This story is full of everything I love about fantasy romance novels. I easily devoured the story and am quickly adding it to my favorite books. It’s the perfect read for the winter because of all the ice that surrounds them. You kind of know from the beginning that Raina’s world will get turned upside down, but you just want to know the truth and how everything unravels.

The Witch Collector gave me The Wolf and the Woodsman vibes because of the once-a-season collection thing, enemies-to-lovers premise, and journeying through the woods in the freezing cold… but that’s where the familiarity ends. The authors’ writing styles and worlds are completely different. Charissa Weaks is new to me, and her world-building is just sooo sooo good. I felt like I could picture every setting our characters went through. AND those complicated fight scenes! I could picture them ALL in detail even as I read at top speed so I can find out what happens next.

The back stories were released perfectly so that we’re able to grasp the entirety of the situation and make sense of everything amongst the excitement throughout their journey. This is (mostly, because there’s one of Helena’s) a dual POV by the chapters and I really loved all the characters — even the evil ones. I can’t wait to learn more about them in the rest of this trilogy. Raina & Alexus’ romance makes my reader’s heart flutter. I loved reading their thoughts of each other and Raina’s emotional clarity at the end. I can’t wait until the rest of the series is out!

Thanks to NetGalley & City Owl Press for the ARC of this book to review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. #TheWitchCollector #NetGalley

I really enjoy this book so much! If you love books about witches and enemies to lovers, you’ll enjoy this book! I love that Raina what does a deaf character but didn’t let that hold her back! She is brave, strong, passionate and extremely determined! I also loved Alexus! He starts out as the villain in Raina’s story, but he is anything but! He is strong and powerful yet gentle and caring! I can’t wait to see what’s next for characters!

The Witch Collector is an interesting story of magic, and love. Thank you for the e-arc City Owl Press. [4.25/5 ⭐️]

Everything is fair in love and war. So is helping your enemy to save their kingdom! Raina is a mute witch who has sworn to kill Alexus, The Witch Collector. He comes into her village and “collects” witches for his King. On the collection day, Alexus wasn’t the only threat Raina had to face! The real enemy, The Prince of Eastland wants what their kingdom had. Its now up to Alexus and Raina to save themselves and their Kingdom.

In this first book in The Witch Walker Trilogy, the author has set the background perfectly and framed the characters with great depth for the next book — City of Ruin! This book has the story more focused on the history of the kingdoms, world building, The Gods and character introductions that mostly revolves around Alexus and Raina. I liked how powerful yet tender these two MCs were — Alexus is a slightly grey character who has his loyalty bound to his king and Raina is a powerful witch whose magic could explode anytime! The alternate narratives of these two characters gave a good flow and grip to the story which is a true treat for slow burn enemies to lovers romance readers.

I read some reviews say that the story started off slow, but it wasn’t true for me. I was captured from the start but it took me sometime to get through the middle part, but the story kept me invested with subtle twists and turns that make a good impact overall. I thought the ending was going to be a cliffhanger, but I liked the happy riding into the sunset kind of ending. Excited to see how the story goes in the second book.

I'm not knocking the rest of the book when I tell you that the cover is absolutely my favorite part. The story...if I'm being really honest, I was hoping for something a little more Uprooted and less Sarah J. Maas.

Great cast of characters. Check. Heartless bad guy. Check. Female heroine. Check. I love a great story that unfolds as you read it! This was fantasy storytelling at its finest!

What did I like? Pretty much everything in this book was just enticing and made you just want to keep going rather than put it down! The witch collector was such an interesting character that once they were on the journey and the slow build between him and Raina was delicious. The world building was so creative and just a huge cast of lovely characters. Some down but definitely not out. I need book two now!

Would I recommend or buy? Yes, fantasy lovers will devour this. I just adored the characters. From the Frost king to the witch collector is a fabulous story. My first by this author but I’m already begging for book two! Five stars!

I received a complimentary copy to read and voluntarily left a review!

Eight years ago, the Witch Collector came and took Raina’s sister with him. Every year he comes and takes the most powerful witches to bring them back to Winterhold so they can help defend the kingdom against the neighbor country threatening to wage war against them. Raina vowed that this year, she would kill the Witch Collector when he comes and finally get her revenge because he took her sister away from her. But things are not as simple as they seem, and there is much more at stake than Raina’s hurt feelings and her desire for revenge. She ends up being forced to travel and even worse, to cooperate with the Witch Collector, who turns out to be a very handsome and sexy young man and not as bad as she thought he was.

The world-building is well done and everything is well explained as the story goes, it’s not an info dump at the beginning of the book. Raina and Alexus spend a lot of time in a magical forest and the descriptions were great. I could feel the dark, mysterious, and cold vibe of the woods. There is also politics and lore that is explained as the book progresses, and overall it was easy to understand what was happening, without it being overly simple.

Raina is mute, and it was my first time ever reading a book with a mute main character. She learned special sign language and she is able to communicate with her close friends and family. Thankfully, Alexus, the Witch Collector, also learned this language during the 8 years he spent with Raina’s sister, so he can communicate with Raina too. I loved this unique trait she has, and I love even more how efficient and strong, and courageous she is despite the extra effort she needs to put in to do magic since she can't sing the incantations. She is not weaker because of the fact that she is mute, she turns it into a strength, and people do not treat her as if she is less powerful either. She is a great main character, and I love how the author developed her during the story and how she changed as she spent time with Alexus and learned about the war raging in the country. She goes from being selfish and wanting her revenge at all costs to being willing to risk her life to help the Frostking and Alexus win the war and save her lands.

Alexus is real book boyfriend material. He is strong, loyal, caring, selfless, sweet, and sexy... AND HE HAS DIMPLES! There is also a lot of sexual tension between Raina and him, and it was a delight to read! Alexus has a mysterious past so it did add some unexpected revelations (that were not that unexpected, but it still counts as revelations) and some mystery to him. The hate-to-love romance has always been a favorite trope of mine, and even though Alexus did not hate Raina at first (I would even say that he was intrigued by her), she hated him enough for the two of them! But how could she resist his charm, his caring and sweet side, and his sexy maleness (and his dimples!)? I fell in love with him too. He also has his own chapters which I ADORED, and it allowed us to really get a good insight into his thoughts and motivations and it just made me love him even more.

The villain Prince of the East is also a great character. He is EVIL. He’s ruthless, cruel and full of darkness that I can’t wait to know more about. The story does not end with a cliffhanger, but we just know that there is more action, battles, and darkness coming, and I really hope to see more of the Prince of the East in the next book... Also, more of the Frostking would be great because he has the potential to be an awesome secondary character, but we didn't see much of him in this book.

I definitely recommend this book if you are looking for a fantasy story full of travel in magical and dangerous woods, adventure, and magic, with sexual tension, light romance, a strong main character, and a very dashing love interest with jade-green eyes and cute dimples. I can’t wait for the next book to be released.
Review postedd on Goodreads on November 23, 2021

A perfect witchy for the Halloween season. My first by this author but left me intrigued and I cant wait to read more! Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to rate and review this book.

Raina Bloodgood will kill the Witch Collector and his Frost King the first chance she gets. He’s already taken her beloved sister Nephele and takes one person every year from her village never to be seen again. So when Collecting Day comes she is ready with her fathers knife. However, when Eastlanders attack and destroy her village including killing her mother, the Witch Collector is wounded to the brink of death and begs Raina to heal him. Reluctantly she does and when she agrees to go with him to find Nephele and the Frost King, everything she thinks she knows changes.

This was amazing! Raina is mute and uses sign language to communicate and cast spells which is absolutely gorgeous in telling. The depth of the characters, the rich world building and the magic system is just perfection. I eagerly await the next books!

I really enjoyed reading this fantasy fiction. The mute witch Raina who comes into her own through the book, realising her powers while her resoluteness, makes her a powerful heroine. Then we have the Alexus, the Witch Collector, who becomes so much more and we readers get to see his various layers. The chemistry between the two is palpable and fiery. The storytelling is captivating and you are drawn in from the start. The other characters and the banter between them is also fun and keeps up with the flow. I really enjoyed reading this book and would love to see it onscreen too! If you like fantasy fiction, don’t miss out on it.

The Witch Collector Review by Divoratricedilibri2.0 Blog.
Thank you NetGalley for this Arc!

The Witch Collector (The Witch Collector #1) is a fantasy book with a great romance even if it is not too central to the plot, a bit like The Bridge Kingdom Series by Danielle L Jensen. To put it as a genre, in my opinion, it fits, also because it is recommended for readers who love Sarah J Maas and JLArmentrout (later I will also add another author to this list, but you’ll see)!
However, below I leave you the synopsis so you can evaluate yourself:
Every harvest moon, the Witch Collector rides into our valley and leads one of us to the home of the immortal Frost King, to remain forever.
Today is that day — Collecting Day.
But he will not come for me. I, Raina Bloodgood, have lived in this village for twenty-four years, and for twenty-four years he has passed me by.
His mistake.
Raina Bloodgood has one desire: kill the Frost King and the Witch Collector who stole her sister. On Collecting Day, she means to exact murderous revenge, but a more sinister threat sets fire to her world. Rising from the ashes is the Collector, Alexus Thibault, the man she vowed to slay and the only person who can help save her sister.
Thrust into an age-old story of ice, fire, and ancient gods, Raina must abandon vengeance and aid the Witch Collector in saving the Frost King or let their empire — and her sister — fall into enemy hands. But the lines between good and evil blur, and Raina has more to lose than she imagined. What is she to do when the Witch Collector is no longer the villain who stole her sister, but the hero who's stealing her heart?

In this world at each lunar cycle the Witch Collectors arrive for Collecting Day and take a girl for the Frost King. Clearly our protagonist Raina doesn’t like this - among other things she has already lost her sister, so imagine, she is really can’t - Her only desire is to kill the Frost King, revenge, especially for the fact that he took his sister. But … of course we know very well that nothing always goes according to our plans ...
Very well, I think we can start from here to say what I think about this novel!
As soon as I started it, it gave me some very strong vibes from Elise Kova's A Deal with the Elf King, book I read a month ago. This is not of course because the two books are the same, because are completely different in the development of the plot, but because in these two books we find a girl with the powers that the king of the wizarding world wants, the species of hunters and the healing powers. .
Here, so for the first pages, chapters, I was a little scared because it was reminding me so much, but then everything changed. And that's one of the things in the plot that I really enjoyed. Between the snow and frost of this amazing setting we have a great plot twist in the first half that changes all the dynamics, not only for us, but also for the protagonist who no longer knows what to think and must re-evaluate everything.
Plus: this the book is narrated in double pov. This fact does not mean that we can get to the point faster, on the contrary, when the real plot twists arrive at the end I did not expect them at all!
The narration is very smooth, a little slow at the beginning but then meshes, also thanks to the romantic ship which is really powerful and in my opinion one of the strengths of the book (it’s an enemies to lovers). As I told you earlier in this story there is romance but not a lot. So you know it means there is a bit of pain before you get any joy! The couple are really nice and I love them, really. They are so cute. There are a lot of troubled moments among them that I've seen in other books, one in particular that every time makes me cry all the tears in my body.
All in all I liked the book, in my opinion the author could making the book beginning faster and more dynamic because, yes, it's a bit slow. But it is a first book so it fits! At the end I thought I'd continue reading only and only for the romance part, but the closer you get to the ending, the twists become important and you feel more and more interested in found out what will happen to our protagonist.

"Maybe. Unless we reverse the run, you will always be tied to me. Your heart will seek to find me until your last breath. And that was not something I had the right to do."

At the end I will surely read the second book, because the ending is clearly open, with a small cliffhanger that still leaves you with the curiosity to understand how the story ends!
I’d really enjoyed it!

This review come out 23th November.

Each harvest moon, the Witch Collector visits Raina’s village and chooses one witch for the Frost King’s guard of Witch Walkers. Eight years ago, he took her sister, and this time, Raina Bloodgood intends avenge her sister by killing both the Witch Collector and the Frost King. However, Raina soon finds herself forced to abandon vengeance and aid Alexus Thibault, the Witch Collector, to save their empire and her sister.
I found this first instalment in the Witch Walker trilogy a thoroughly engrossing read. The system with magic being sung, and a mute protagonist who relies on signing to access her power were intriguing. There were plenty of favourite tropes; I enjoyed the juxtaposition of ice and fire magic, and the enemies to lovers romance, as well as having a female protagonist out to save the empire. This is definitely a series to watch out for –the next instalment will be at the top of my TBR pile!
Thanks to NetGalley and City Owl Press for providing me with an electronic copy of this book in exchange for a review.

Adventure and magic abound in this first book in the new trilogy by Charissa Weaks. I enjoyed it all and look forward to all of the future books. Raina, the main character, is mute and wants revenge on the King and the Witch Collector for taking her sister 8 years ago but of course nothing is as it seams and when Riana is forced to partner up with him when her village is attacked. Great romance and fantasy in a fast paced adventure.

A beautiful story with a strong and courageous heroine. I couldn't put this down! Beautiful writing kept me turning the pages!

I had this book in my tbr for a while before I decided to sit down and read it, and boy am I upset. I waited so long! The beginning did take a little while before it started picking up, but that is to be expecting, what with the world building and introduction of characters. I loved Raina and Alexus, and the plot was so entrancing at one point I couldn't put it down until I finished it!

I don't know what I'm going to do with myself as we all wait for the next installment! I'll be one of the first people in line!

Thank you to the author, City Owl Press, and NetGalley for access to this ARC in return for an honest account of my thoughts.

Received an Advanced Reader’s Copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you!

The Witch Collector was an unexpected surprise. When I read a reviewer’s quote comparing TWC to some other books I’d read and loved, I was optimistic.

However. TWC has its own tenor and rhythm. It flows evenly from beginning to end and at no point did I feel the music of the book quiver or miss a beat. I loved the even pace and slow exploration of characters.

The plot was really strong in TWC and in support of it, the multi-perspective narrative delves into the minds and hearts of the protagonists and pulled the story forward with it. There wasn’t too much I could guess or predict with TWC and frankly that’s also possibly because the book keeps you rooted to the moment on page. That was a fantastic aspect to the writing that never lets you venture beyond the now. There are some aspects to the book that require some time to understand, simply because the workings of the world are very different from what we’re used to; however that adds to the freshness of the story.

The characters were well developed and each had a strong sense of purpose. I’ve always been wary of multiple POVs because of the confusion and discordance it can bring if not done well. But Weaks pulls off writing in multiple perspectives easily. Each character is well defined and suits their respective roles well. They’re also growing within and outside the spheres of their personalities and watching that unfold was lovely. Some of the hardest things to get across as an author is an inherent connection between people who’ve just met and a tangible connection between people who’ve had a past together. It’s a very hard style to write and I do think Weaks easily depicted a believable and real-feeling relationship between characters.

Definitely a five star read for and a highly recommended book from me! Happy reading and stay safe!

This book started out slow for me, but about a fifth of the way through, I couldn't put it down. The beginning was difficult with a lot of world building being thrown in without a lot of context. It made it difficult for me to warm to the main character at first. Once the Witch Collector was introduced though, the world opened up for me. I love a strong female lead, and this book delivers on that score. There are pieces of her that are missing for me though. I wish that we could've known more about Raina's relationship with her sister. It would've helped explain her intense desire for vengeance, and added more conflict when she begins to have feelings for Alexus aka the Witch Collector. In the end though, I became invested in these two main characters, and even the supporting cast of characters, enough so that I cannot wait for the second book. A thoroughly enjoyable fantasy tale of good vs. evil, of complicated romance, and of magic, love and courage.

Actual rating: 3.5 stars

I liked this, but it did take me a while to finish it (which is unusual for me). The story was mostly gripping, but it seemed to lose focus a bit in the middle to the point where I wasn't sure where the plot was going to end. It's pretty easy to read though, and I did like the general ideas. I also feel like I'm interested in continuing the series.

This book feels like a good one to read in winter because of this frost kingdom setting. We have different types of magic like fire, frost, healing, and shadow magic. I liked this variety of magic, as well as how magic is sung in this world (especially in regards to how this changes for Raina). There are some gods in this world as well that add extra intrigue to the story. I liked how the story goes from being a small scale revenge quest to learning more about the wider picture.

Raina was an enjoyable main character. She's mute, so she actually sings her magic by using sign language. This was an interesting idea, and I liked seeing this representation! I enjoyed how she wants to kill the Witch Collector to stop anyone else from being taken from her village and to rescue her sister. She can be stubborn and loyal, but I think her heart is in the right place. I'm very intrigued by her background and powers, and I definitely want to find out more about what she can do. I also liked this slow (ish) burn enemies to lovers romance - I certainly felt their chemistry!

Alexus, the Witch Collector, has some depth to him and isn't as evil as he initially seems. He has reasons behind why he does these things, and I think he ultimately wants to help people and protect the kingdom. We spend most of the time with Raina and Alexus as they journey across the kingdom, and I liked seeing these different locations.

There's also a shadow prince involved here as an enemy, and he certainly seems mysterious and evil. I want to know more about him and his goals! He and Raina have a bit of a connection, so I definitely want to explore this idea more. I also liked getting the lore of the world with all of these gods, and I can't wait to see where the story goes (especially after events at the end).

Overall, I had a fun time with this book and am interested in continuing the series. I would recommend this book, especially if you enjoy fantasy romance!

My video review can be seen on my booktube channel (around minutes 0:57-4:08 of this video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3osZmeqtsw

I loved this so much that when I finished it, I immediately googled when the next book will be out because I need to immediately read it and find out what happens next!

What drew me in was the cover and the description that sounded really interesting, and then it had me hooked from chapter 1.

Alexus, the witch collector, is Raina's enemy. But what happens when he goes to take her for collection day, only to save her from the chaos of an attack from the Eastlands instead? She realises that everything she thought she knew about her enemies - him and the king - is wrong and that there are instead real enemies she should be focusing on.

I like the slow burn romance of this. Raina is confused by Alexus as all he's shown is worry for her safety and kindness, but she has been plotting his murder for a long time and has only known hate towards him so when her body starts having different reactions to him, she tries to fight it.

Raina is an interesting character because she is mute, so often overlooked, and has self taught her magic, so she doesn't yet realise how strong she can be. Alexus is instrumental in teaching her just how powerful she can be and it's great to watch her become more confident in her abilities with his guidance.

And Alexus is also a really intriguing character with his dark background. I think a lot of the characters were well written - the Prince of the Eastlands, Nephele, Helena and the gods. Their stories have a lot of potential and could definitely be a spin off but I hope we focus mostly on Raina and Alexus for now.

What's important about Raina and Alexus's relationship as well is when she mentions that he accepts her for the person she is and doesn't see her as a person to be changed. He sees her determination and her fire and knows that it's part of who she is.

Can't wait for the next installment!

5⭐

Thank you to NetGalley, City Owl Press and the author for the review copy, provided in exchange for an honest opinion.