Name: The Witch Collector
Series: Witch Walkers #1
Author: Charissa Weaks
Publisher: City Owl Press
Format: Kindle
Genres: Romance, Fantasy, New Adult
Noted Tropes: Enemies to Lovers, Hidden Identities (it makes sense once you’ve read it), Revenge, Forced Proximity, Touch her and you die
Steam or Spice: Spice
Rating:
Synopsis: Goodreads
Raina Bloodgood has one desire: kill the Frost King and the Witch Collector who stole her sister. On Collecting Day, she means to exact murderous revenge, but a more sinister threat sets fire to her world. Rising from the ashes is the Collector, Alexus Thibault, the man she vowed to slay and the only person who can help save her sister.
Thrust into an age-old story of ice, fire, and ancient gods, Raina must abandon vengeance and aid the Witch Collector or let their empire—and her sister—fall into enemy hands. But the lines between good and evil blur, and Raina has more to lose than she imagined. What is she to do when the Witch Collector is no longer the villain who stole her sister, but the hero who’s stealing her heart?
Review:
The Witch Collector was supposed to be an October read as apparently I was in my witchy-era when I picked out the additional books to join my TBR to match the October vibe a bit more… Sadly I didn’t finish it in time, but that’s partly due to the fact that the first 50% of this book is incredibly slow! It just took me a surprising amount of time to get through the first half of the book. Once it picked up it stayed mostly picked up (a small dip here and there I don’t mind!). I’m really hoping that the rest of the series stays at the pace set out by the second half of the book, because otherwise I might not make it through the rest of the series!
Raina, our FMC is a witch without any markings (sound familiar?) and so it is believed that she can do very little magic. Turns out – that is absolutely not the case, and because of this The Witch Collector chooses Raina as the witch he will be taking back to the Frost King. Luckily for Raina, she wants to get close to The Witch Collector – but not for the reason he’s hoping.
Raina is an absolute badass, I love her powers, and her attitude! And it was awesome reading a book where the main character is mute! She uses a ‘hand language’ to communicate with people (she signs) and this was a really cool aspect of her character! Enough people couldn’t communicate with Raina so we know that this isn’t a language known by everyone and the few who do know it, know it because they care about Raina and learned it to communicate better with her.
To be clear, the characters who learned her hand language weren’t doing so because they saw Raina as someone who needed protecting or defending, they simply did so in order to communicate with her. Her being mute was not used as a reason against her (that was down to the lack of markings on her skin), and I really liked that.
The Witch Collector is our MMC, his name is Alexus and damn do I love him. We find out that Alexus has what appears to be a genuinely sweet relationship with Nephele – who is Raina’s older sister, taken from their family years ago (whilst Raina was old enough to know and remember and miss her sister). I really hope this is explored more in the rest of the series. But what I cannot wait for is more between Alexus and Raina. Whilst I have a bit of an issue with the almost… insta-lust between them, ultimately I really like their relationship and I’m excited to see where it goes (and a little worried because I think there are 3 more books in the series!?).
I enjoyed the magic system that Weaks is building, and although I made the comment earlier of ‘sound familiar’ when I mentioned that Raina has no markings on her body showing her abilities, I didn’t mean that as a bad thing. I really like this idea and I’d love to read more books with it! It was just quite the coincidence that I picked up two books that explored this idea to read in October without knowing it! That being said, I don’t think we got enough of an exploration of her magic system. What we know is cool, but I want to know more! So here’s to hoping further explanations come!
And the last thing I want to mention is that man I’m going to need more of the Frost King. I think he is going to be an amazing character and so I hope we get more of him in the rest of the series! And of course Nephele, I’m excited to get to know Raina’s sister – because Raina surely got it from somewhere, right?!
This wasn’t perfect, and it took a bit to get into, but I’m excited for the story and these characters! I really hope that the rest of the series echos more of the second half of Witch Collector because then this series is going to be amazing! We shall see! My goodreads review shows 4 stars, because I would not be the person to mark this as a 3 star read because I .5’d it!! Goodreads, please allow us .5 reviews!!
“You will never move forward if you never leave things behind.”
Reading With Tyler 
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