Been thinking of DNF-ing around 30% because all things gave stressful vibes. All angers, over-protective characters, a perfect family outside but very broken inside. But, I’m glad I keep it up because it got much better in the second half.

Heart of a Witch is telling a story about Victoria, a witch, who lives so overprotective with her family because they live in a city famous for its murderous witch hunter, Damian Shaw. One day, something happened to her sister and she wants to seek revenge to Damian, then she meet Elijah, Damian’s son. So she makes her way in to revenge with seducing Elijah to earn his trust.

This book has many elements to highlight. Morally grey characters, enemies-to-lovers trope, magic, dark magic, betrayal. It also has fast-paced, but oddly in the same time it felt lack of progress.

What I didn’t like: many things left unexplained and lack of characterization. Like maybe how the magic system works, and why the use of dark magic can affect the brain, then also what is the fate of the blood pact that Victoria promised to the succubus demon. And also what about the other enemy’s family showing up nowhere to kill them? The setting was kinda confusing, they seem to be dressed like medieval times, and sometimes spoke like ones, but sometimes it’s also felt like contemporary?

Thankfully, the ending save the day! I was quite touched and happy with the ending. I head that it will be a series, so I hope in the next book we’ll get to see Alex (Victoria’s little sister) and Corbin (Elijah’s brother) more because in fact the story of the two of them also seems no less interesting.

I received this book for free for an honest review from netgalley #netgalley

No words just wow! Amazing

I am a sucker for witchcraft and revenge. This was the perfect combination. The author weaved the perfect witchy read with great characters. I loved the dual POV, it made it much more interesting and it added positive to the storyline. The family interaction was definitely one of my favorites!

Really enjoyed this world! Felt unique and fresh! The world was different. I love a good villain story. We don’t get to read from this perspective often enough.

It’s so hard to find a good fantasy standalone! Heart of a Witch was so well done and I finished the book feeing very satisfied. I will definitely backtrack to read the other standalone book in the series. If you’re a fan of morally gray characters, revenge plots, enemies to lovers trope, paranormal/witch, and villain origin stories, you cannot miss this one. Dark and twisty, fantastic and developed characters, atmospheric with A+ world building, and Garcia created great tension that kept you on the edge of your seat. This honestly had no business being so good! I immediately purchased a copy after finishing this.

This was a unique world building enemies to lovers story. It was told in a way that was totally new exciting and unique. Great writing and in credible characters.

Thank you to the publisher, netgalley and the author for allowing me to read this eARC, I feel so blessed to be able to have critical conversations about great books and recommend books to my book club.

This is a new adult fantasy romance which is my first book by Rebecca L Garcia but I enjoyed it so much I want to read more of her books. This was everything I want in a romance fantasy book and more. The characters are great loved the world and just had a whale of a time.

really enjoyable and quick read! i read this in one sitting and i loved the all the characters as well as the writing. The plot started to pick up after 20% of the book which was what kind of annoyed me but i still loved this book!

Another amazing book in the Embracing Darkness collection!!! I love the enemies to lovers romance!!! This paranormal thriller will keep you turning the pages!!! I can't wait for her next book!!! Read and enjoy!!!

It took me a few attempts to get into Heart of the Witch. It has a bit of an edge so I definitely had to be in the right mood but once I got into I enjoyed it. I got slight Serpent & Dove vibes.

I love a tale of vengeance and enemies to lovers and while I liked Victoria and the vengeance aspect I struggled to warm up to Elijah. Overall, Heart of a Witch was a good read and I'll be reading more from Rebecca L Garcia in the future.

Victoria is a witch that live among humans with her family.
She doesn't like humans because of their bad reputation with witches: usually when they learn of the existence of a witch, the witch is tried and killed.
Her sister, instead, want to live freely with humans because she thinks that every human have a good part.
After Damian Shaw, a famous witch hunter, come to Victoria's village everything changes and someone die.
Victoria starts her revenge, she come up with a plan.
She's going to shatter every good thing in Damian’s life, ending with his son. Her goal: make Elijah Shaw, Damian's son, fall in love with her, twist him into the very thing his father hates, then kill him.


I liked some parts but I didn't apprecciate other parts.
The story is good, we have a witch and the son of an hunter, that should be a future hunter, that will fall in love together.
I was a little bit confused while reading because I wasn't sure if I was liking what I was reading or not.

There are some chapter that are too slow other full of action, most of them at the end of the story.

I didn't understand one thing about this book: why is Victoria the only one that have to use dark magic? She's a witch, why she can't use any different kind of magic?

A wonderful story, full of emotional changes. Even so throughout the whole book Victoria descends into darkness, it still is written in a lighter tone and is not all doom and gloom.
I really liked all the different characters, but especially the two leads. The seemed very dynamic and definitely made interesting choices.

The author does a fantastic job balancing very dark and graphic moments with some lighter moments. I enjoyed the moments Victoria spent with her family, pets, music and just being herself. It was beautiful that despite them planning on killing the murderer, they were all very adamant about not involving other or hurting people.

A vengeful fantasy….. This was a really heart-wrenching read. The emotions in every chapter were overwhelming. Victoria and Elijah were both very easy-to-connect-to characters, and their feelings intermingled perfectly from the day they met. I knew the ending would be similar to what I expected but there were also so many unexpected twists! What I really would love to see in the future is a spin-off on this - set in the future, maybe on Alexandra and Corbins side.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the E-ARC copy of this book. The rating of this book is entirely of my own opinion.

I love a good mythology read.especially one where the author has done their research. this book is written exceptionally well, with great character ARC which work with the story and not against it. it was a book i just could put down as when i did (damn you adulting) i just sat there thinking about it.

plus the end was satisfying which made it all the better in the end.

This book was SOO good! I knew by the description that I would love it anyways, but after reading it! Wow! My favorite thing about this book is that it's a villain origin story. Not to mention, a woman's villain origin story. So many books have men play the villain, and it's rare to find a good woman villain, but this book definitely delivered. I loved the witchy dark vibes all throughout, and the romance was the perfect amount. Rebecca did a great job with the writing, and crafted an amazing read!

3/5 Stars

** I received this as an E-ARC from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for my honest review, Thank you!**

This was just an average read for me. I wasn't really the biggest fan of the romance between Victoria and Elijah. I just felt like there was something missing. I didn't enjoy parts of this book, but Victoria just wasn't a character I was interested in. I felt very disconnected from the characters. Overall this was just alright, I will check out more from this author in the future.

Thank you to NetGalley for a copy of this book.
This book was amazing! It is refreshing to read a book with a main character who is not the traditional hero, but is actuality traditionally considered to be the villain. Victoria was a marvelous main character and highlights the moral dilemmas of a character facing the difficult choice of being evil or good. I highly recommend this book!

Hum… ok I have mixed feelings on this one…
We follow Victoria and her family hiding among humans, until the day a witch hunter kills her sister and they have to disappear. Instead of leaving, she decides to take revenge on the witch hunter by hiding under his nose in his own city and taking everything away from him…by using his son.
While the main story was compelling, some of the writing was taking me out of the flow… Some movements weren’t explained good enough for my taste, making it a bit fuzzy for me to follow what was happening. Some of Victoria’s decisions and the plot were also a bit predictable. But that might be just me… And if that doesn’t bother you, you might have a good time with it.

What a nice surprise! I was a little worried about this title because it sound interesting but it was compared to A touch of Darkness that I didn't enjoy overall. But I can say this is a good dark romance with an amazing enemies-to-lovers trope. Seriously, the relationship was well developed, which could be hard with this trope.

I wouldn't say this story has the most memorable characters, but they do the work and don't end like caricatures of themselves.
There were moments where I thought that the balance between romance/drama and revenge/hatred was about to crash down and make this book a complete mess, but...my mistake. The author took care of not rushing things unrealistically, keeping the tension and conflict until the end in a readable way.

I have no complaints about this title, and I would recommend it to people looking for books similar in plot to Serpent & Dope because it gives you what it promised: A dark vengeful story about a witch who wants to destroy a witch hunter (through his son).

I also think is smart to put a main male protagonist who doesn't want to do anything with the witchhunt, but sees himself involved. It makes it easier to digest the romance between them. It makes him more approachable, easy to redeem for the reader (that helps not to break the reading experience), and let's face it...less toxic.