witchy books – LairOfBooks

Title: The Witch’s Heart

Author: Genevieve Gornichec

Pub. Date: February 9th 2021

Genre: Norse Mythology/Fantasy

Format: eGalley

Publisher: Ace Books

Pages: 368 pages

GOODREADS | BARNES & NOBLE | AMAZON

🖤eGalley provided by Publisher in exchange for an honest review, all quotes come from an advance copy and may not match the final release🖤

“𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑠𝑎𝑦 𝑎𝑛 𝑜𝑙𝑑 𝑤𝑖𝑡𝑐ℎ 𝑙𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑑 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑡, 𝑖𝑛 𝐼𝑟𝑜𝑛𝑤𝑜𝑜𝑑, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑠ℎ𝑒 𝑏𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑜𝑙𝑣𝑒𝑠, 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑠𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑢𝑛 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑜𝑛. 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑠𝑎𝑦 𝑠ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝐴𝑠𝑔𝑎𝑟𝑑 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑏𝑢𝑟𝑛𝑒𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑟𝑒𝑒 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑠 𝑢𝑝𝑜𝑛 𝑎 𝑝𝑦𝑟𝑒, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑟𝑒𝑒 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑠 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑠ℎ𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑏𝑜𝑟𝑛 𝑏𝑒𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑠ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑙𝑒𝑑“

I’m happiest with a slower paced read that pulls me in with lush storytelling and characters I can’t help but get invested in. The Witch’s Heart will appeal to fans of Madeline Miller, Katherine Arden and Rin Chupeco. We follow Angrboda a Giantess who has lived many times over in the Ironwood. She’s been burned by Odin three times and has had her heart cut out, yet she lives. Angrboda is gifted with the magic of Seid, the ability to see the future and essentially the end of the world as the Gods know it. She lives protected and in hiding until the God of mischief Loki stumbles across her cave. This is the story of their complicated love, offspring, and revenge on the Gods who constantly play with the lives of those they consider beneath them. Angrboda is bi-sexual and there’s a beautiful relationship that develops later on in the book, slow burn *𝐶ℎ𝑒𝑓𝑠 𝐾𝑖𝑠𝑠* worth the wait! I went into this story not knowing much other than it was centered on Norse Mythology which is a subject of interest for me. I allowed myself to get swept away by Angrboda’s story and quickly found myself absorbed by these characters lives. There’s a prophecy and there are Gods behaving badly, it just doesn’t get better than that!

There is a fair amount of dialogue in this story which is something I personally enjoy. I’ve seen some reviewers say they were a little thrown off by the dialogue being a bit more modern in comparison to the world it’s set in…honestly, the witty banter between all of the characters is what made this book super entertaining and endearing. Angrboda herself is someone who has lived a few times over and as such she is NOT in any way old fashioned. As a matter of fact she’s quite the opposite! Angrboda is all accepting, she loves who she wants to love and is quick to look you in the eye and ask why you’d assume she preferred one gender over another for her lovers. She’s simply a character I hope to never forget! now, I didn’t think we’d get much from Loki but I was pleasantly surprised by how Gornichec wrote this character. Loki is a multi-faceted character who is very comfortable with his sexuality and wishes only to never be controlled and/or know what the future has in store. We also got an amazing line-up of side characters in Angrboda & Loki’s children but I won’t speak on the why’s since that would be spoilery. Overall, a new favorite for me this year and a mood changer. I’d say this is a medium paced book with lots of character development, witty banter and YES! ROMANCE for the WIN! 🤗

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Fall is absolutely in the air, it’s been a long time since I’ve braved posting a TBR here simply because the past 2 years have been mood reading heavy. Unintentionally this TBR is giving off major fall vibes & I am here LIVING for it! although I’ve found a new love for Summer, the Fall season will always be my one true love. It’s when I do the most reading, rock the cute hoodies, and drink all the seasonal drinks…I’m looking at you Starbucks Irish Cream Cold Brew 😉

By the time this post goes live I’ll be in the process of reading 2 or maybe 3 of these titles, one is definitely an audiobook. All of the titles listed below are eGalleys/ARCS/ALCS I am very thankful to have received & will be trying to review within this month. If I manage to make my way through these, I have a few add-ons to choose from but ummm…

Crazy Stupid Bromance (Bromance Book Club #3) by Lyssa Kay Adams-Lyssa Kay Adams can continue writing in this world & I will buy all of her books. Here we follow Noah Logan the unofficial Bromance Book Club member who is a tech savvy nerd/hacker. As with all of these books there’s a guy who is in need of better understanding the female love interest. I’m only 15% into this book & already it’s getting hard to stop reading so fast. I love that we follow the important themes discussed in the previous book with sexual harassment at the work front. The men are still hard at work shedding toxic masculinity seen first hand at the very start when we learn that Liv (previous female love interest) has entrusted all wedding arrangements to her fiancé Braden Mack. Braden has gathered his book club to make paper carnations & GAH! I LOVE these characters so friggin much!

Horrid by Katrina Leno-In the spirit of continuing to read Horror, this could not have come at a better time. Set during the Autumns season we see a girl whose father has passed away & with her mom returns to her home town. Creepy vibes in this house where there’s a “storage”room that runs out to be a little girls bedroom. Our MC also faces bullying in this town & from what I can gather, this may come down to grieving & mental illness or something actually dark & secret. I’m intrigued but will definitely be reading this with the lights on & no my Kindle back light won’t cut it 🙂

Fable (Fable #1) by Adrienne Young-Pirates are my drug of choice but give me female pirates & now I don’t know how to act. I LOVED Adrienne Young’s Sky in the Deep & jumped at the chance of reading this on Netgalley. After losing her mother to the Sea, our MC is left to be raised by her father who in turn abandons her. Left alone to fend for herself, she sets out to make her way back to her father to convince him that she is worthy of being a member of his crew. What she doesn’t know is that during the time she was away from him, he’s picked up quite the rivals in his trade business. No one is to be trusted & nothing is as it seems…

A Deadly Education (Scholomance # 1) by Naomi Novak-I am about 15% into this book & I in NO way am here to support she who shall NOT be named. However, this book really does feel like the Slytherin story I never got. This I guess in many ways is Dark Academia with a MC who to many will come across as unlikeable. I happen to LOVE this type of character, her inner monologue has me wicked chuckling smh. She has all this dark power within her & can cast some powerful spells but doing that would bring about destruction. While others are working simpler spells to make life easier, she can’t summon anything basic. In many ways she comes across as a Bitter Betty but I can’t help LOVING her!

When No One is Watching by Alyssa Cole-Thought this was just a thriller but early reviewers are saying this leans more towards Horror. This is the year where I’ve started to take an interest in horror so I’m here for it! I’ve already started the audiobook via Libro.fm (my referral code) & the narration is A+! set in Brooklyn we meet a MC who is in the midst of watching her neighborhood go through the changes imposed by gentrification or is it? did the neighbors really relocate to the suburbs? I hear our MC may be a bit of an unreliable character & I love me a paranoid MC! here for it!

Kingdom Of The Wicked (Kingdom Of The Wicked #1) by Kerri Maniscalco-My! My! MY! I have yet to read a Kerri Maniscalco but this author has remained intriguing AF to me. Happy to satisfy my curiosity with this tale of twins, one Is gruesomely murdered & the other is left to find her murderer and avenge her death. Somehow, she gets thrown into meeting one of the Princes of Hell who is in charge of investigating the deaths of numerous women?!? Dark Romance?! HELL YES!

Legendborn (Legendborn #1) by Tracy Deonn– Southern Black Girl Magic? sign me up! Queer characters & secret societies within a school setting? with magical weapons? HIGH hopes! early reviews are all leaning towards this being a potential 5 star *fingers crossed*

Wayward Witch (Brooklyn Brujas #3) by Zoraida Córdova– The 3rd book in the Brooklyn Brujas trilogy & we finally get Rose Mortiz as the main POV! the littlest sister who is a rebel at heart, I’m beyond stoked! won’t go into deets cause spoilers but this is such a awesome Latinx trilogy to get into filled with magic and adventure.