REVIEW: The Witch and the Vampire by Francesca Flores

• 📖 info

  Published: 21st March, 2023

  Genre: Fantasy, Romance

  Pages: 368

• 🍿 themes

  witches are protectors, vampires are 'evil', magic, nature, lgbtqia+, friends to enemies to lovers

• ⭐ rating

  3.5 out of 5 stars

• ❗️ content warnings

  • Blood

  • Death of Parent(s)

  • Animal Death

  • Physical Abuse

  • Torture

  • Child Abuse

  • Vomit

  • Child Death

  • Murder

✿ blurb ✿

Ava and Kaye used to be best friends. Until one night two years ago, vampires broke through the magical barrier protecting their town, and in the ensuing attack, Kaye’s mother was killed, and Ava was turned into a vampire. Since then, Ava has been trapped in her house. Her mother Eugenia needs her: Ava still has her witch powers, and Eugenia must take them in order to hide that she's a vampire as well. Desperate to escape her confinement and stop her mother's plans to destroy the town, Ava must break out, flee to the forest, and seek help from the vampires who live there. When there is another attack, she sees her opportunity and escapes.

Kaye, now at the end of her training as a Flame witch, is ready to fulfill her duty of killing any vampires that threaten the town, including Ava. On the night that Ava escapes, Kaye follows her and convinces her to travel together into the forest, while secretly planning to turn her in. Ava agrees, hoping to rekindle their old friendship, and the romantic feelings she'd started to have for Kaye before that terrible night.

But with monstrous trees that devour humans whole, vampires who attack from above, and Ava’s stepfather tracking her, the woods are full of danger. As they travel deeper into the forest, Kaye questions everything she thought she knew. The two are each other's greatest threat—and also their only hope, if they want to make it through the forest unscathed.

✿ my review ✿

I want to start this off by saying that I really wanted to like this book. I found out about it long before it was released. I heard witch and vampire and f/f relationship and I was sold.

But as you can see, my rating isn't that high. In fact, I feel it's only this high only because I could see the authors vision and I really enjoyed the world they created. I wanted to love it and I did, but it was the concept that carried me through. Unfortunately, this book suffered from a lack of sufficient editing.

And that was the main issue here. The story itself was great, I liked the writing too. But there were a lot of inconsistencies. What's frustrating is that they are an easy fix, which is the whole point as to why we edit. But unfortunately, the editor did not read through this carefully enough and the book suffered for it. An example of this was that in one scene, it was night one moment, then day, then night again.

Another thing I had an issue with is that I don't think as a reader I was convinced enough about the eventual romance. They had a great back story but the present timeline didn't lend itself for you to feel that the witch could forgive the vampire for what they fundamentally are. It would have been a bit more convincing if we saw a bit more compassion as feelings grew. Again, something that could easily have been fixed in editing.

I read this book a while ago but honestly still think of it with fondness, but then get sad about what it could have been and that the author was really done dirty.