Review: Spellbound

Spellbound
By Rebecca L Garcia

Publication Date: September 3, 2021
Date Read: August 27, 2023
Genre: NA – Fantasy
Source: eARC from Netgalley
Format: E-Book
Pages: 500

From Goodreads:
A dark and twisted fantasy standalone romance, where hate and love collide in a world filled with snarky witches and vengeful gods. Perfect for fans of To Kill a Kingdom and Kingdom of the Wicked

Grieving being torn from her beloved sister, who remained behind in the human kingdom, Elle makes it her life purpose to become a keeper in her cursekeeper coven.

But this calling won’t be an easy one.

The magic possessed by her small coven of four casts them as outsiders throughout the kingdom. Yet when witches are found murdered in the woods, the cursekeepers quickly become the town’s only hope.
Many believe the murders are the work of a god. An old one returned in search of vengeance. Elle, on the other hand, suspects Viktor, the new warlock to town, is somehow linked to the violent deaths. However, his agenda doesn’t stop there.

Infiltrating her coven.
Charming everyone around him.
Threatening her plans to become a keeper.
This rivalry quickly becomes personal.

When the truth behind the murders surfaces, Elle finds herself thrust into a dangerous new world, trapped between twisted hearts and terrifying beings. With the victims piling up, she must decide who to trust and who to protect before it’s too late.

When I first heard about Spellbound, I was really intrigued by the blurb. It was coming out in 2021 which was definitely the rise of Romantasy, and it sounded so good. I immediately requested it on Netgalley… and then it sat on my kindle for 2 years (story of my life). I finally picked it up as part of my ARC August challenge, and I enjoyed it. Is it the best in the romantasy genre? No… but it is enjoyable.

One thing I absolutely loved about this book was the premise. It was such a fun and unique storyline. Witches are all raised and educated in their own land, but the main character is desperate to get back to the human land as she has left her sister behind. There’s magic challenges to become a ‘keeper’, there’s gods on the loose and even a murder mystery. It had all these wonderful elements that actually worked incredibly well together. I am a plot girl through and through so I loved that the plot was the big focus. Where this one fell down for me was the romance.

Elle and Viktor are wonderful multi-dimensional characters, and I loved reading about them… until their romance kicked in. I just didn’t feel any emotional connection between them at all. It’s an ‘enemies to lovers’ trope, though to me it didn’t really feel like enemies, as much as rivals at best. But I feel like some of the spicy scenes were just dropped in for the sake of it and it didn’t make me feel anything. It went from Elle and Viktor sniping at each other and distrusting each other… to a spicy scene… and then back to distrust. And while this can work and be an absolutely delicious dynamic, I just didn’t feel any connection between the two of them. There just wasn’t enough time spent dedicated to their emotional connections and developing those feelings. I actually felt nothing between them and felt more like I was being told they liked/loved each other rather than showing me they did. That made it feel unrealistic to me and so I just didn’t connect with their romance at all.

I also had some issues with the pacing in this book. The build up of the plot in the first 50% of the book was fantastic… but then we had some random battle at 50% in which gave ‘book ending’ vibes for it to then slow down a hell of a lot before a bit more action towards the end. I really got bored in the second half, and I was just really looking forward to the book being done. I ended up skimming a lot in the last 20% because I just didn’t feel it at all.

Spellbound is not a bad book, not at all! I’m certain this book will have a huge fanbase, but two of the things that I love the most in books is good pacing and when a book makes me feel something for, and between, the characters, and unfortunately I just didn’t get that from this one. I probably won’t be picking up any more by Rebecca as unfortunately I feel like her writing style is just not for me.

Follow K-Books on WordPress.com