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.

I haven’t read anything by this author before but found myself immediately hooked to the world she has built for this story.

After Victoria’s sister is killed by the witch-hunter, Damian Shaw, she vows to get revenge. Forced to flee, Victoria, Cassian and Alexandra move to Redforest, separation from their mother to keep her safe. The Shaw estate is based in Redforest, so their new home is the perfect place for Victoria to enact her plan and get revenge for her sister. She plans to destroy him from within, and doesn’t want a quick death, but rather a painful death. She doesn’t expect for her plans to get more complicated when using his son, Elijah, for her access to the estate.

‘If humans wanted to believe us evil, then I would become precisely that.’

Heart of a Witch is dual perspective, told from both Victoria and Elijah’s views. Victoria is a very morally grey character, and this story illustrates the lengths she will go for family and someone she loves. At the beginning it seems like her villain origin story. Her brother and younger sister occasionally label her as heartless, as she doesn’t tend to show emotion. However, throughout the course of this novel, the emotional and nurturing side of Victoria begins to shine through, as she tries to come to terms with the loss of her sister. I love the strong family relationships in this book as they really come together to enact their revenge.

‘When you tore out her heart, you took mine too.’

Elijah is quite a different character, for one, he is not a witch. He has lived under his father all his life, as his mother died when he was younger. He is very protective over his younger brother, but at the beginning almost seems to weak to properly stand up to his father. Damian Shaw wants Elijah to follow in his footsteps and take over the witch hunting, but Elijah is perfectly happy running his club and wants nothing to do with the hunting. Once he’s introduced to Victoria, Elijah’s life begins to take a turn.

‘I’m not going to hurt you… Don’t you know? I’m in love with you.’

The setting of this book was perfect for this plot, I felt myself transported easily into this world. It was so immersive and I was quickly hooked to the story and the characters. There is a lot of tension between Elijah and Victoria as feelings begin to grow. Victoria plans to use Elijah to break his father, but does love get in the way? I loved seeing these characters develop and show their vulnerable side. This was a great enemies-to-lovers story and it seems like there can be no happy ending for these two characters!

All in all, this was a great fantasy romance read and I will definitely be reading some of the other books by this author as I could not put this one down! I recommend it if you like dark fantasy, witches, strong sibling bonds and enemies-to-lovers!

what I loved: the fact that this was a standalone fantasy, the enemies to lovers storyline, the presence of witches (aren't witches awesome?), the villain origin story
what I didn't love: the writing style (came across as a little juvenile), the predicable ending, Elijah's wishy wash relationship with his father

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange of an honest review.

This was such a really solid read! The romance was believable, the storyline was interesting and the characters were fun to follow.

2.5 stars, I rounded up

This story is a new adult fantasy romance following the perspectives of Victoria and Elijah. Victoria and her family are witches, who hid in plain sight among the humans who hate and hunt them down. After her younger sister ends up dead at the hands of the infamous hunter, Victoria sets her sights on revenge destroying everything he loves including his heir, Elijah.
This story has a number of aspects that I love: enemies to lovers, secret missions, magic and dangerous odds. The beginning was very promising. It was detailed, the writing was solid and flushed out. You felt the characters' emotions and really captured my attention. Victoria is a strong character, trying to take the burden of caring for her family but Elijah was a bit dull and easily manipulated. I really enjoyed the first 75 to 100 pages, but then the story seemed to take a turn after that. The writing stopped being detailed and emotional, to more of a fact-based story. There was no impact or reactions that I was expecting from the characters, especially after some of the events that happened. The insta love did not work for me between two characters because of descriptions of character personalities and past events, I did not like it or how it fit into the story. The end for me, was unsatisfactory in the sense that the way the story was set up I was expecting a sadder ending and that after everything that happened, they overlooked what has happened to each other. Everything was just wrapped up too easily. The second half threw me off because the first was detailed and emotional and the second half was a bit of a 180. I would have also liked a bit more world building and details on how the magic system worked. I found it interesting, but it was very basic and nondescript.
Trigger warnings: animal abuse, gore, blood, cutting, child abuse
I received this advanced ebook, via Netgalley. This review is my own honest opinion.