The Harvest has begun. The Mercer Witches are ready

An intense and epic start to a dark, magical series.
The Harvest is the first book in D.O. Scissom’s Mercer Witches series, a story of righteous witches who fight evil and deliver justice to the powerless. The Mercer Witches are a powerful coven of women who take on consorts—willing human men sworn to protect them until the very end.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from the vague title, but once I saw the full series name on Goodreads (The Harvest: The Mercer Witches Series Book One), I realized I was in for something much bigger. This is a sweeping, high-stakes tale featuring women trying to do good, zealots convinced they’re righteous, and dark forces rising.

The beginning was a bit overwhelming with a heavy info load and fast-switching perspectives, but once the world and characters settled into place, I was hooked. The action scenes are thrilling, the gore is vivid, and I was fully pulled into the Mercer Witches' world.

What didn’t work as well for me were the constant cliffhangers and time jumps—they made the pacing feel rushed, especially near the end. And as an ARC, there were quite a few typos. Still, I’m eager to keep reading and see where this epic battle of good vs. evil goes. I just hope future installments spend more time with each character and smooth out the pacing.

Thanks to NetGalley and BHC Publishing LLC for the opportunity to read and review this story.

DNF'ed unfortunately :(

I really tried to enjoy this book and there were genuinely so many good ideas that could have been further explored. I feel like a lot of the chapters could have been extended, the chapters not jump to so many timelines and everything be more spread out (perhaps into multiple books). It felt like the author was writing down every idea as it came and this is no offense to the author but it read like how I speak when I go off so many different tangents. :))

This is not to deter people from giving this book a shot! It had a lot of potential, I think it just needed some trimming and reordering :))

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!

This on started with a good setting and an interesting plot but I struggled to stay hooked.
I DNF it around 30% so I will not recommend it based on my own reading but I will include the book in one of my list of recommendation because I think a little few of my audience might enjoy it.

I had to force myself to finish it.

This sounded like exactly my thing at first (also love the idea of cults).
The Harvest follows M.M. Wildes as she tries to protect her magical home (Mercer) while something dark begins killing witches and abducting future members of her coven/family.

But the book just didn’t work for me. There were so many characters introduced out of nowhere, and it made the story really hard to follow. I kept flipping back trying to figure out who people were and how they connected. Some scenes were confusing, and conversations often went on way too long without adding much. I wanted to like this so badly, but it lost me more than once.

So yeah, not for me unfortunately.

For this book, I was unfortunately unable to get past the second page, I normally try to push myself to at least finish the first chapter before deciding if I don't like the book but the writing style was not it for me. I can see that people who like witches, supernatural etc would like this book but I couldn't get into it.

Overall premise was so intriguing, I just struggled with the pacing of the story, it felt disjointed in parts.

Colleen Elizabeth Carter, una exitosa escritora que aparentemente lo tiene todo,una familia perfecta, una carrera brillante y una doble vida amorosa, ve su mundo tambalearse el día de su 40.º cumpleaños. Lo que comienza como una celebración sensual y arrogante de su poder, se convierte en una pesadilla al ser visitada por Seanchara, una criatura sobrenatural que le revela un pacto familiar sellado generaciones atrás: todas las mujeres de su linaje reciben éxito absoluto a cambio de un precio terrible.

Ahora, Colleen debe elegir entre su propia vida o la de una hija de su sangre. Este encuentro brutal y escalofriante desentierra secretos familiares, traiciones y verdades tan crudas que desafían todo lo que creía saber sobre sí misma y su legado. Mientras tanto, otras voces y personajes se suman a esta red de magia, espiritualidad y horror: mujeres rotas que buscan redención, iglesias que esconden cultos extraños, y una red secreta de brujas que combaten el mal desde las sombras.


..


No sé qué calificación ponerle, porque si bien la premisa me pareció interesante, los personajes no me cayeron bien.
Por el momento lo dejo en tres estrellas.



Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for the ARC in exchange for an honest

Loved the story! Definitely isn’t another modern day Penny Dreadful. Not a page is wasted beating around the bush with useless world-building or unnecessary character development. The story hits the ground running right from chapter 1 and I was immediately hooked. Lost a lot of sleep staying up late into the night telling myself “just one more page”!

I found the premise of this book intriguing. The concept of a secret sect of modern-day witches, alongside a morally grey supernatural benefactor addressing everyday evil and an emerging organized threat, had great potential. However, I believe the execution could be improved in several areas.

One issue was the pacing. It felt uneven, possibly due to the undefined jumps in time and the multitude of perspectives that made it difficult for the storylines to align cohesively. Additionally, the structure of presenting each chapter as a snippet of a larger story hindered the connection to the diverse cast of characters.

There were moments when entire chapters seemed unnecessary, such as the first chapter about M, which didn't add much depth. Some of the writing was quite procedural, with the point-of-view character explaining their plans in detail before executing them, which at times felt repetitive. This approach, while informative, detracted from the overall flow of the plot.

Moreover, the worldbuilding could be more developed. I noticed several spelling and grammatical issues that disrupted the reading experience, along with a few sentences that were unclear or awkwardly phrased.

Overall, while there were great ideas in this book, the writing style felt somewhat rigid and disjointed. I think a thorough rewrite focusing on these aspects could help the story reach its full potential.

This book was a big letdown and a lot of it has to do with the writing. Yes there were a lot of spelling and grammar errors but the story felt so stiff like the author was just going through a list of everything he wanted to say. Nothing flowed, pacing was erratic, and it felt like nothing lined up. This book really needs to be re-written.

I thought the premise of this book was intetesting. A secret sect of modern day witches, with a morally grey supernatural benefactor battling fighting everyday evil as well as a surging organised threat.
Unfortunately the execution was very poor.
My main issues were
1. The pacing of the book was off. I think this was due to undefined leaps in time and the story being told from many POVs but the story lines didnt seem to line up. It also didnt help that each chapter is a snippet of a story - but you dont necessarily get the full story which makes it really hard to connect to any of the myriad cast of characters
2. There were occasions where entire chapters were entirely redundant e.g The first chapter of M's added nothing to the character or story
3.There was too much procedural writing e.g. the POV character thinks about the plan then describes to another character in excrutiating detail the plan again, the we see them do it. Too much of the plot was driven by this. And yet somehow it managed to give very little worldbuilding.
4.There were many spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, missing words and sentances that didnt quite make sense or flow properly.

I seriously considered DNFing this book at about 25% but carried on in the hope the literary choices were building to something and it would pay off in the end - unfortunately that wasnt the case and i really wished I had not persevered.