Fans of Howl's Moving Castle will find echoes of charm in this imaginative tale. The premise of down-to-earth Foss unexpectedly entering a magical world, complete with a captivating sorcerer and his spirited enchanted house, is delightful. Foss's practical nature provides a lovely anchor to the fantastical elements. While the world could be richer and the pacing a little smoother, the story offers a pleasant escape with hints of romance and a compelling underlying mystery. A promising and enjoyable read for those who appreciate lighthearted fantasy.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with this e-ARC!

In a world where sorceresses snag pieces of a person's heart, our strong and resilient Foss Butcher is snagged by the male sorcerer that visits her village. Experiencing an intense bout of heartsickness, she leaves home, headed for the city to find the sorcerer and signs up to be his housekeeper.

Full of fantasy, and mysterious magic and a talking cat for companionship, this is a story that slowly but surely tickles your interest. The storytelling can be quite slow to begin with - there were times where I got lost about the storyline but it steadily builds on. The world-building is different and fun and intrigued me greatly, and would love to know more of the outside world.

The tone was slightly confusing. Overall while the concept, the world building and mix of characters was fun, the storyline seemed to tangle upon itself and lack structural integrity. Still a recommend!

Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Publishing for providing me with the eARC and the opportunity to read and provide an honest review!

I would like to start by saying the world building was great. Such a cool concept! Heart magic! I loved the sentient house and talking cat.

There were a few things that didn’t work for me. The first was the length. This was very long. Or it felt very long which is worse. There were quite a few times that I was shocked at being around the 50% mark but it had felt like I had been reading for so long. The second thing I struggled with was the pacing. It moves very, very slowly and then the end is over so quickly. The third thing is our main characters. Foss is a tough sell for a leading lady. She has zero confidence in herself and must mention how ugly she is roughly one thousand times. And Sylvester stays very two-dimensional.

So, my feeling with this book was, though the potential was there in spades, the execution didn’t work for me, unfortunately.

I think some editing could really help this book become what it has the potential to be.

3.5🌟 rounded-up.

💛 Whimsical
🫀 Beauty & The Beast Vibes
💛 Unique Magic
🫀 Cozy + Animal Companion
💛 Unique Overall Vibe


I enjoyed this. It's an immersive and slightly odd read. There is a unique overall vibe to this story story, and while the romance fell short for me, I still had a good time.

Foss (our fmc) sets out to find her heart after it's snagged by a mysterious sorcerer. However, she doesn't expect to unearth deeper secrets surrounding these mysterious magic wielders and a mysterious blight that is overpowering her kingdom.

My favourite thing about this story was Cornelius, the cat. He reminded me of Salem from Sabrina the Teenage Witch with his sassy remarks and no-nonsense quips. He stole the show. I have complicated feelings about Foss (our FMC), she really doesn't hold herself in a remarkable light, but she's also a very good person who wants to help anyone she can. Foss did have some great character development throughout, and I loved her coming to realize her value. Sylvester (MMC), however, felt pretty underdeveloped as a character. He just doesn't stand out, and his limited interactions with the FMC in the first half of the story just didn't sell the romance portion of the story.

The first half of the story hit me a lot harder than the second. There's a noticeable change in pace and a sense of urgency that develops. The villains also fall a little flat because there's no real depth to why they are bad. It's more just "bad guy wants to be bad and powerful."

That said, Andrea Eames does a great job of building a kind of cute and cozy story that is, at times, quite dark - but has an overall whimsical tone that supersedes the darker themes. The magic system was really neat, the theme of capturing and stealing hearts was well done, and the animal companion was top-notch. Overall, it reads like a coming-of-age, whimsical, dark fairytale, and you can feel the beauty and the beast references seeping through the pages.

𝓣𝓱𝓪𝓷𝓴 𝔂𝓸𝓾 𝓽𝓸 𝓝𝓮𝓽𝓰𝓪𝓵𝓵𝓮𝔂 𝓪𝓷𝓭 𝓚𝓮𝓷𝓼𝓲𝓷𝓰𝓽𝓸𝓷 𝓟𝓾𝓫𝓵𝓲𝓼𝓱𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓯𝓸𝓻 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓐𝓡𝓒 𝓸𝓯 𝓽𝓱𝓲𝓼 𝓫𝓸𝓸𝓴. 𝓐𝓵𝓵 𝓽𝓱𝓸𝓾𝓰𝓱𝓽𝓼 𝓪𝓷𝓭 𝓯𝓮𝓮𝓭𝓫𝓪𝓬𝓴 𝓬𝓸𝓷𝓽𝓪𝓲𝓷𝓮𝓭 𝔀𝓲𝓽𝓱𝓲𝓷 𝓽𝓱𝓲𝓼 𝓻𝓮𝓿𝓲𝓮𝔀 𝓪𝓻𝓮 𝓶𝔂 𝓸𝔀𝓷.

Thank you NetGalley and Kensington Publishing for the chance to read and review this book!

I actually really liked A Harvest of Hearts! I think Foss is a very good character and I adored that she wasn't magically made beautiful by the end of it. As someone who has been pouring an unholy amount of money down the beauty industries throat this last year, I really do want more characters who don't magically become sirens, but are loved for who they are and beautiful to those who love them. The anger towards pretty girls was also interesting; I don't think you're allowed to often talk about that in books and I'm very sure some people will criticise the author for doing it; but I think it made Foss a more well rounded and extremely capable character.

The plot is also pretty good; the heart magic and the darkness around it were very well done. Some elements like the mist we saw earlier in the book were very well tied in with things that happened later.

I do do unfortunately feel like the author made some rookie mistakes that will leave a lot of people disappointed; namely that so many elements were rushed. Some things do need to happen quickly, like when the magic wielders attached Basil and his group, but the end of the book and the way Sylvester releases the spell could have been done better. I also know that she feels really bad, but it was a stupid immature MC mistake to go back for Millie and hang on to Colin like that. Da and how easily he lives is also strange. The book could have been made a duology.

Cornelius is my favourite, obviously, and I honestly would have picked a fight if something had happened to him.

Well deserved 4 stars.

A charming and whimsical read with a unique take on magic. The worldbuilding was easy to follow, and the characters had a delightful dynamic. While the pacing slowed at times, the enchanting atmosphere kept me engaged!

This was such a cute story to have a title like A Harvest of Hearts. Yes hearts are harvested literally but the main character, Foss, was such a down to earth and relatable character that the book had a cozy feel. I didn't love that Foss's appearance was referred to so often. Its great to have a heroine that is not beautiful but there was a little too much harping on how ugly she was.
Of course, my favorite character was Cornelius, the talking cat. He was such a typical cat. The villains were a little flat and especially the main antagonist, Clarissa, could have been more complex but oh well.

I liked the premise and thought this book had a very strong opening, effectively introducing the world and magical system. After about the first three chapters, I thought the plot dragged and it felt like the story couldn't quite decide whether it wanted to be a magical, cozy domestic story (like Howl's Moving Castle) or a dark, bloody romance. Although Foss, the main character, was relatively interesting, I thought Sylvester was pretty bland and had a hard time seeing him as a convincing love interest. Based on the descriptions of heartsickness, I was expecting more tension and angst from the earlier chapters. Because the focus seemed to be more on domestic chores, the whole rest of the book felt relatively more lower stakes than it probably should have. There was a bit of a tonal shift towards more darkness in the second half, but I would have liked for that vibe to have been more present in the first half as well.

Because the story focuses so heavily on Foss and Sylvester's relationship, I thought that other interesting aspects of the worldbuilding were slightly overlooked. I wanted more from the other sorceresses (we really only meet one, besides Sylvester) and the group that Foss meets, with others who have had their hearts harvested. Interesting backstories were revealed very close to the end, and the main conflict wrapped itself up so quickly, especially when compared to the pacing at the beginning/middle.

Overall, I wanted this book to lean a little harder into its dark premise and to have more character development. I did enjoy Cornelius (the cat), and am very glad that he was included. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants an adventure led by an intrepid heroine and her animal sidekick (her love interest doesn't really feel like one of her sidekicks, and I'm not really sure how to classify him, although he is present for most of the adventure).

Thank you Netgalley for this arc. I really wanted to read this because of the synopsis and the beautiful cover was a bonus. the characters and plot was very enjoyable. The world building was not too complicated to understand, which I really thought was a plus.

Unique magic and adorable main character. I love that the main character, Foss, is an average sized girl and isn't the "amazing" can do anything kind of person. The use of an animal companion was amazing and the slow burn but little insta love of Sylvester and Foss was truly great.
This story is very wordy. I had trouble keeping focus because Foss's inner dialogue just went on and on. Also the use of first person narrative of being written as if it's a spoken story to be inclusive of the reader.
The world building was pretty minimal but enough to understand the magical world it was set in. The magic itself was pretty well explained and I liked how it was more of the unique style of magic style. This story was cute and I enjoyed it.
Thank you NetGalley and Erewhon Books for the opportunity to read this book

Review of A Harvest of Hearts by Grace R. Ferguson (3.5 Stars)

A Harvest of Hearts is a sweet historical romance about love, second chances, and small-town life.

What I liked:

Good characters: The main characters are relatable and easy to root for.
Romantic build-up: The romance grows slowly and feels genuine.
Nice setting: The small-town feel is well done and adds to the story.
What could be better:

Pacing: The middle of the book feels a bit slow.
Predictability: Some plot twists are easy to guess, which can make the story less exciting.
Overall, it’s a nice, cozy romance, perfect for fans of slow-burn love stories. It’s not the most surprising book, but it’s still enjoyable and heartwarming.

Thanks NetGalley and Kensington for an advanced copy of this book.

A Harvest of Hearts is reminiscent of Howl's Moving Castle, with more death and destruction. Foss is a lively and amusing narrator, Sylvester and his magic house are complicated and a bit sinister, and Cornelius the cat is, naturally, the best sidekick one could ask for. Foss is accidentally magically snagged by Sylvester the sorcerer, so she is compelled to follow him into the city. She must come to terms with her own feelings of inadequacy while also trying to save the kingdom from the megalomaniacal king and his sorceress "daughters" who harvest people hearts, both in little bits and in whole, ostensibly to keep the kingdom safe from outside threats, but also to satisfy their own greed for power. Part cozy, part creepy, this was an engaging and heartwarming (sorry, sorry) story with a fun cast of characters.

A truly captivating novel with a unique storyline that makes for a great read. It weaves a whimsical and dreamy narrative, infused with magic controlled by the heart. The characters were delightful, quirky, and full of charm.

Overall a different take on magic, combined with a little bit of adventure really made this one stand out to me, and even though it wasn’t as fleshed out as I would’ve hoped, I quite enjoyed it.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for this book in exchange for an honest review!
DNF @ 20%

This is a... strange book, that I do not believe really marketed well at all. I expected whimsy and Studio Ghibli vibes. Instead, it's very weirdly sexual, which nothing about the blurb really made it feel like it would be (especially with describing it as whimsical), and the writing style just comes across very stilted. It's like it's trying to mimic the writing style of the Howl's Moving Castle book and just failing.

Worst of all, though, I was just bored. 20% in and we don't really know anything. We literally have a cat who just constantly says "I don't know" to things. We just did learn the love interest's name. It also just feels pretty ick to me just how Sylvester's 'hook' in Floss works. Maybe that one's on me for not reading the right vibes from the blurb, but it just feels very... uncomfortable.

So yeah, this book isn't for me. Maybe others won't be as bored or will like the writing style more, but for me, there was just nothing enticing me to keep going while multiple things encouraging me to stop 🤷‍♀️

Perfect for the dans of Howl's Moving Castle (the book especially) !

This dark cosy fantasy explores the darker side of magic. There are some interesting thoughts about beauty standards and self-esteem. I absolutely loved Cornelius : he is a talking black cat and clearly the best character of the story (he almost made me cry).
Unfortunately, some parts were too long to my taste and I would have liked to read other points of view than Foss's, especially Sylvester's. But it was still an enjoyable read!

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC !

In case we haven’t met digitally before — Hi, my name is Jordyn, and I love to read. I especially love books about magic, cats, and love. It should come to absolutely no one’s surprise that I adore the original book version of Howl’s Moving Castle very much. So, when I saw that A Harvest of Hearts was immediately compared to Howl, well, I had to request a copy of it. I won’t lie to you — I wasn’t immediately taken with this book. However, it did grab me eventually, and I sunk very deep into the pages. A Harvest of Hearts is almost too-obviously inspired by Howl’s Moving Castle. There’s a sorcerer who lives in a magic house, and has to harvest hearts to do magic. There’s enough different here that it works, but it is still VERY OBVIOUS where the author got her ideas from. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, I do want to add!

Our main character is a young woman named Foss who describes herself as hardy, solid, squat, and ugly. Foss is extremely capable, and despite the way she feels about herself, seems to be liked well enough in her town. (Foss claims to be bullied by the other girls, but we see no evidence of that on page. However, a boy she has a crush on is mean to her.) Everything moves along at a plodding pace until we meet the Sorcerer — Sylvester. (Which as a name, I’m not going to lie, did not work for me. I just kept seeing the black and white cat cartoon.) Foss is immediately snagged by his magic, and has her life completely turned upside down. As for Sylvester, he is almost an exact copy of Howl, when it comes to personality. He’s whiny, self-important, and vain. He does end up melting his ice-cold exterior eventually, but it does take quite a long time to get there. I don’t even think I enjoyed his presence on page until well over half the book.

Through Foss’s eyes we are shown why the magic-users must harvest hearts, and what they do with them. We see the horrors that the King is willing to do, and the horrid, toxic personality Sylvester’s sisters actually have beneath their beautiful faces. It takes a good long while to get to any sort of point when it comes to the plot, however. We find out that Sylvester is young, and barely seems to know what he’s doing when it comes to magic. We find out, eventually, that the King is a horrible person who steals street urchins right under everyone’s noses. Right at the very end, we find out why Foss is so different compared to everyone else in her village.

There-in lies my problem with A Harvest of Hearts — it was about a hundred pages too long. While the story itself is very interesting, and the writing well done, the length it takes to get to any sort of resolution is somewhat irritating. This book could have been excellent, and many will probably have the opinion that it is so! Unfortunately for me, I believe it needed a heavy hand with the editing pen. Despite my complaints, I did enjoy most of this book. Three and a half stars.

I was promised Howl's Moving Castle vibes, and that is what I was given. While the beginning of this book did take some time for me to get into, once I did get into it, I couldn't put it down. The story at the beginning did very much remind me of Howl's Moving Castle, but the plot is very different. I enjoyed watching both Foss and Sylvester grow throughout, and I absolutely loved Cornelius as a source of humor.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of this book!

e-ARC & audio-ARC from NetGalley.

When her heart is stolen (literally) by a sorcerer, Foss has no option but to travel hundreds of miles to find him. Once there, however, she finds herself entangled in a magical conspiracy, traversing his sentient house, with only a talking cat to help her.

This book is compared to Howl's Moving Castle, and I couldn't imagine a more accurate description. A Harvest of Hearts is very Studio Ghibli coded and, most of the time, very whimsical and endearing. It's a very cozy fantasy novel but impressively not lacking in self-awareness.

There were two main downfalls for me.

The first was the romance. I wanted them to fall in love, but there was no build to it. One minute, they were nothing. The next, they were swapping v-cards in the woods. I loved the romantic scenes themselves, but I needed hints of it much sooner.

The second issue was Foss herself, but I think it's because I can never truly connect to characters embodying this amount of prickliness. She just seemed rude and off-putting. But I'm cognizant that this is a me thing.

Overall, this was a very entertaining book and is perfect for fans of cozy fantasy, Studio Ghibli, and Disneyfied versions of classic fairytales.

I've seen this compared to Howl's Moving Castle, and superficially, I think this does bear a slight appearance to that terrific story. However, this novel by Andrea Eames is much darker, and bloodier, with a world where people are randomly taken from their homes by sorcerers for some unknown purpose.

Foss Butcher, a daughter of a loving father and a long line of butchers, is minding her own business, a little sad that no one sees her as much more than a plain young woman, but more sadly, a curse, as her mother died giving birth to her.

Sorcerers have been through their village in the past, taking people, and she knows one man who returned, but seems really diminished from who he had been. Thinking how terrible it would be to be taken by a sorcerer, and one's heart extricated, is nothing she wants a part of. And then a sorcerer arrives one day, and one look from him is all it takes to snag her, and once he's gone, she impelled, forced, urged to follow him back to wherever he dwells by ferocious pain in her body.

She leaves her home with a short note left behind, and makes her way to the city, and eventually the house of the sorcerer. Once inside, she's greeted by a cat, who begins talking once she wishes for it, and Cornelius shows her around, and Foss meets the sorcerer, and begins keeping house for him. The house, a semi-alive thing, helps her out, providing food, cleaning sheets, and other things.

Sylvester, the sorcerer, is bemused by her presence, but goes along with it, eating her good, and not really noticing anything else about her. Foss meanwhile is determinedly searching the entire house, at least where the house allows her to go, for her heart.

She's horrified and attracted and entranced by Sylvester, and begins learning more about how he became a magic worker, and learns more when Clarissa, who whisked Foss' fellow villager away, visits, and begins to realize, after meeting others in the city whose hearts have been taken, that she's in danger of wasting away terribly if her heart, or a piece of it, is removed.

Of course things become worse for Foss, (and Sylvester who struggles to act like the other sorcerers) and though she tries to escape, is captured by the king, who needs ever more hearts to maintain the magic of the land.

Andrea Eames has created a wonderful heroine in Foss Butcher. While looked down on in her village, she's likeable, smart, determined, and caring. She's also funny, and unwilling to meekly take what others tell her to do. Her relationship with her father is heartwarming, and Foss is easy to cheer for as she navigates one dangerous situation after another after departing her father's home abruptly.

Sylvester is surprisingly sympathetic, being much less in control of his life than Foss initially thinks. He's also a gentle person, who would rather not hurt others, even after all that has been done to him.

The star of the book, though, is Cornelius, the black cat living in Sylvester's house. He's got that know it all attitude of cats, but he's also a staunch ally when Foss needs one.

I enjoyed this story a lot, with its engaging story to its wonderful main character, and her friendship with Cornelius. I was a little less invested in the romance, but I did think it was handled well by Eames, building slowly over the course of this satisfying novel.

I went back and forth between the prose and the audiobook, and Jessie Elland does a fantastic job voicing Foss, from her time in the village and the pain she feels at her treatment there, to her growing determination to save herself and others from the sorcerers. I loved Elland's Cornelius and Foss' loving father.

Thank you to Netgalley, Kensington Publishing and RBMedia for these ARCs in exchange for my review.

I had a great time reading this! The comparison to Howl’s Moving Castle is spot on, though A Harvest of Hearts has a much darker, eerie tone rather than a lighthearted one. The whimsical atmosphere was one of my favorite aspects, blending enchantment with an unsettling edge. That said, the pacing dragged in places, making some sections feel slower than I would have liked. Still, the story’s charm, rich worldbuilding, and intriguing characters kept me engaged from start to finish.