The Witch’s Heart by Genevieve Gornichec is officially my first five star read of 2025 and I need to rave about it.

I owned this book a year or two back but eventually changed my mind about wanting to read it and gave it to a charity shop. It was pure chance that it popped up as a book to read for a vlog I was filming and then I found a copy in a different charity shop that weekend! Some might call it fate…

Initially, as someone who usually cannot be bothered with romance in books, it was the love story that put me off reading this novel. We follow Angrboda and her life as a witch after she was put to death three times in a row and survived. When she hides herself away to heal, she meets Loki and they tangle themselves in what would be an incredibly toxic and (arguably abusive) relationship in the modern day, but neither of them are human and they both have bizarre powers that put things like ghosting and gaslighting to shame. Their equally sharp tongues, fierce independence and the unconventional relationship that blossoms between them drew me in bit by bit and I couldn’t help but get swept up in the romance of it all. The book should get a gold star for that alone.

When their relationship produces three children, each more unexpected and unnatural than the next, their love story devolves into tragedy and heartbreak and I can honestly say I have never been angrier at fictional characters in my life. 

However, the love story is not why I love this novel; it’s Angrboda. 

Angrboda is the witch of every Halloween-lover’s dreams: she is a cave-dwelling, potion-mixing, wolf-riding badass who stays well out of the way of the gods because they’re jealous of how powerful she is. She is fiercely independent, humble and practical and makes her home in a completely inhospitable place where her hard work, determination, and networking allow her to build a homestead to be proud of. She survives being burned alive three times and rears three dangerous children in the home she built herself from scratch. Thor’s macho nonsense doesn’t hold a candle to her inner strength and she’s wily enough to stay under their radar.

 Her friends are a (mostly) joyful addition to her life and I can add this novel to the list of books containing secondary characters that need a whole book to themselves, please and thank you. (Skadi, I’m looking at you.)

This is a long book, and I suspect that had it been any other I would be complaining about the pacing: the first half moves sedately through the plot while the second half has bursts of action and drama interspersed between slower sections that feel erratic and a little off-putting. However, this is a retelling of many of the Norse myths from Angrboda’s point of view, and as such, the bizarre occurrences, odd pacing, and dogmatic motivations of some of the characters are easily blamed on the eclectic source material that Gornichec stays true to. Name me one Norse myth that doesn’t sound like it was thought up in a drug-infused haze.

In no other book would a wife be entirely nonplussed by her husband returning home as a pregnant mare, then staying in that form for months until he gave birth to an eight-legged colt that he fobs off on his brother and then he never mentions it again. Gornichec leaves out none of the absolutely wild turns that the Norse myths take, instead weaving them seamlessly into this novel in a way that makes them feel entirely normal. 

If you love Norse mythology, romance, fierce women, or just a beautifully crafted retelling, you’ll adore this book. Please pick it up!  

The Witch’s Heart is available now – order your copy HERE