Review: The Witch and the Vampire by Francesca Flores

The Witch and the Vampire by Francesca Flores
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was provided print and an audio ARC of this book via Netgalley, all opinions are my own.  

This is a queer retelling of Rapunzel, which I don't think I knew when I requested this.  You don't often see Rapunzel retellings, though I have seen a few pop up recently.  All I knew going in that this was a queer fantasy with witches and vampires, I didn't really need any more to entice me.  I do love a good retelling though.  It has been a while since I've read the original Rapunzel, but I get the correlation.  The action and adventure parts more closely resemble the movie Tangled, which to be fair is probably the version of Rapunzel that people are most familiar with.

This follows former best friends Ava and Kaye who are both witches, except Ava is a vampire and Kaye is a vampire hunter in training.  Kaye's mother was killed on the same night Ava disappeared (the night she was turned), and they haven't spoken in years.  Ava has been held prisoner by her mother and her creepy husband, but she's had enough.  She is determined to escape and seek refuge with the Vampire Queen.  Meanwhile Kaye is doing everything she can to prove herself worthy of being a Flame Witch and hunter.  On the night Ava escapes, Kaye catches up to her and the two of them embark on a journey of self-discovery they didn't intend on.  Kaye has been taught to believe that vampires are only mindless killers, but Ava proves her wrong at every turn.  Together they must work together to fight against more dangerous beings and face devastating betrayals if they want to survive.

I really enjoyed the enemies to lovers, slow burn romance.  The romance is really clean so it is perfect for young adult readers.  There are vampires so there is blood.   While there aren't particularly graphic or gory scenes, there are vampires doing their thing and several fight scenes between the vampires and the witches so if that isn't your thing I'd steer clear.   The world building could have been a bit more detailed.  I find that the fast pace and the action packed scenes made up for that.  The story was entertaining and the romance wasn't over the top.  It is fairly slow burn as the friends reestablish trust in one another 

I really enjoyed the audiobook version of this.  I flipped between the ebook and the audiobook, but I  put in the most time on the audiobook.  I enjoyed both of the narrators and felt they did a good job brining Ava and Kaye, as well as the rest of the characters to life.  They brought emotion into the story where it belonged and I could feel the tension between the girls as the story progressed.  

I felt the ending was a rushed.  Things came together really quickly at the end and I felt like it really needed a few more chapters for it to be flushed out. While the ending was conclusive, it was a bit open ended.  I did get the feeling of closure, but I wouldn't be surprised if we see more of Ava and Kaye in the future.  

Overall, I loved this.  I didn't want to put this down once I picked it up.  

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