The Witch's Heart
#3434.03 in the official ranking · full ranking
Books 1 book Status Complete 2021 Reading commitment Low Genevieve Gornichec Last reviewed 2026-08-29
Overview
The Witch's Heart (2021) is a standalone Norse-mythology retelling centered on Angrboda, the giantess and prophetic witch who becomes the lover of Loki in Norse myth. Banished and stripped of her power by Odin for refusing to reveal the future, Angrboda flees into a remote forest at the edge of the world, where she meets Loki and, later, the huntress Skadi. As she and Loki raise their three children, each carrying a fate foretold in the old sagas, Angrboda's prophetic sight slowly returns, and she must decide whether to accept the future she sees coming for her family or fight to change it. Genevieve Gornichec draws directly on traditional Icelandic sagas and Nordic legend, reframing familiar Norse myth from the perspective of a minor, mostly voiceless figure in the original sources.
Mythic fantasy · For Adult
Core Canon: Reading Order (1 work) counts toward ranking
The Witch's Heart (2021) core · 4.03 (64,781 ratings)
Quick answers
- How many books are in The Witch's Heart? The Witch's Heart's Core Canon is 1 book.
- Is The Witch's Heart finished? Complete (2021).
- How much reading does The Witch's Heart take? Low reading commitment (estimated from 1 Core Canon book · ~359 pages).
- How is The Witch's Heart ranked? #343 in this site's official ranking, based on 64,781 reader ratings across 1 Core Canon book. See the full ranking for how this is calculated.
Why is it ranked #343?
Ranked #343 in the official ranking.
- Average reader rating of 4.03 across 1 core book.
- A smaller readership (64,781 ratings), so the score carries less weight of numbers.
- Less than 0.01 behind #342, A Sorceress Comes to Call (a finer tie-break level decides the order).
- Below the top-10 average of 4.45.
- A single standalone novel: ranked on that one book alone.
Why explore this universe?
Well rated · 1 book · Complete · 65k ratings · Ranks #343 overall
Good choice if you want a quick, low-commitment mythic fantasy universe that's already finished, so there's no wait for the next book.
Reading order
A single Core Canon work: no sequencing question to resolve.
Awards (verified)
- No verified awards found for this novel.
Related universes
- Same author The Weaver and the Witch Queen: Both novels are by Genevieve Gornichec and share a broad Norse-mythology/historical backdrop, but have no shared characters, plot, or timeline -- The Witch's Heart is set in the mythic era of the Norse gods, The Weaver and the Witch Queen in 10th-century historical Norway. Kept as two separate universes by the same precedent as Guy Gavriel Kay's Ysabel vs. The Fionavar Tapestry, the same resolution already reached for a comparable same-author pair earlier in this project.
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Official resources
Research details
Ranking metrics: weighted average 4.03 across 64,781 ratings on 1 Core Canon book. See Why is it ranked here? above for the full breakdown, or the full ranking.
How do we know this?
Admission: The Witch's Heart admitted as a single-work universe accepted 2026-08-29
Sources: (see source tier definitions)
- Penguin Random House Tier 1
- Fantasy Hive Tier 3
Related universes: see the Related universes section above.
Last reviewed: 2026-08-29
Rule: Core Canon is the 1 published novel. There is no Expanded Canon: the author has written no companion short fiction set in this novel's continuity.