This book was so cute and heartwarming, I love it! At first, I thought the number of pages wouldn’t be enough, but it was. It was perfect, the length, the story, the character development and the romance was all I could ask for!
Another thing I love about this book is the description of the seasons, I felt like I was there seeing the world changing and the feeling that comes with each season, it was magical!
Thank you Rachel Griffin, you got a new fan now, can’t wait for your next work, I’ll be on the lookout! Also, thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

I wanted so much to love this book. I just couldn't care about the main character. The set up of the magical world was also a little sparse. I feel like I would try reading this again but I just couldn't get past the first "season". I just didn't care enough.

Nature of Witches is a lovely book about magic, balance, and the environment. Think Alice Hoffman for YA. Such a fun read!

BOOK REVIEW: The Nature Of Witches by Rachel Griffin

Witches using their magic to fight climate change… And a sweet clean romance too… ✨😎✨

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All my reviews can be seen at This Is My Everybody | Books, Lifestyle & Home Ideas for Simple Living | Denise Wilbanks at www.thisismyeverybody.com

You can see my complete book feature on The Nature Of Witches at https://www.thisismyeverybody.com/books/2021-books-new-books-coming-out-in-2021-june-books-tbr-books

* A big thank you to Rachel Griffin, Sourcebooks Fire and NetGalley for providing me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed in my reviews and content are my own… ✨😎✨

A beautifully whimsical story about nature, weather and finding your potential. Trusting in yourself and others around you.

I enjoyed Clara and Sang’s relationship, definitely a slowish burn, friends to lovers. It was sweet, gentle and I loved the one part where they communicated through flowers.

I wish we had a little more world building outside of the school and even inside the school. I understand Claras interaction with her classmates is strained because she’s afraid of developing a connection and her magic hurting anyone but I don’t know, I wanted more I guess.

Actual rating 4.5

I seriously loved reading this book.
I loved that the witches from the different seasons actually have different powers and even different temperaments. I really liked that own main character of Clara might have been an Everwitch, but she was not all-powerful. She was still human. And definitely still a teenager.

I was not expecting this to be as heartwrenching as it was. I really loved all the emotions that it brought to the surface. And I loved that we had some very relevant talk about climate change and how it affects the weather.

There were a couple of spots that felt off for me. But now that I have finished the book and it's been a couple of days, I don't even think I can tell you exactly what they were. I definitely need to get a copy for my collection because I can see myself rereading this in the future.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for providing the E-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

#thenatureofwitches #netgalley

I had a really hard time getting into this book. I'll have to try again at another time.

Thanks to NetGalley & SOURCEBOOKS Fire for the early copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book follows a witch who has all the powers of the seasons, whereas ordinary witches get one season (similar concept to Avatar: The Last Airbender). She has arrived at a time when humankind needs her the most, non-magical humans have messed with the planet's atmosphere and as a result, the seasons are off. Clara is the only one who can bring the world back to the way it was before.

I really tried to enjoy this book but the writing style was NOT for me. The protagonist being self-centered and obnoxious didn't help either. I wanted to fight her...her ex-girlfriend was actually the most reasonable character in the book. The protagonist kept repeating OVER and OVER again "everyone dies and it's my fault" which is fair because it's true but it also got really irritating super quickly.

Not to mention, the insta-love was annoying. I wanted a witch book dangit, and it turned out to be 80% romance...at least the romance interest was sweet, but I really wasn't in the mood for it.

It's disappointing because I really enjoy the concept of seasonal witches, but the writing style really bogged down the good ideas.

Thanks to Netgalley and Sourcebooks Fire for a copy of this book!

I went into this book not knowing much about it, just having seen the cover and a brief description on social media. At first, I put the book down after the first 10% because it just wasn't what I had fully expected at all. However, when I picked the book back up, I ended up really getting sucked into the storyline and into Clara's pain and journey, and I wound up really enjoying this book!

The story revolves around Clara, an Everwitch, the only witch of her kind who can experience a magical draw to all four seasons at the appropriate times (normal witches only experience an affinity for one season). Witches are responsible for maintaining the climate and monitoring large storms, but as the climate becomes more erratic, witches are dying or losing their powers, creating a cyclical effect. The correlations to our own crisis are obvious, but the book doesn't feel like its pandering. Most of the story revolves around Clara's journey to learning to understand herself, her past traumas and pain, and tapping into her power.

First and foremost, I love the way that Griffin dives into Clara's trauma and presents her difficulty with relationships honestly. I found her character and her relationships with others to be deeply moving and also realistic. She feels fully realized, and I enjoyed each of her relationships.

The biggest thing for me was that I had to adjust to what this book was and what it was trying to do. While it undoubtedly is tackling a huge, world-changing issue, this is actually a very quiet, personal story. Once I realized that and got wrapped up in it, I really enjoyed the book. I loved the focus on each season, and how they brought different things out in Clara, without things becoming stereotypical.

My biggest gripe was actually just the final ending and "resolution" felt a bit rushed and unearned, and a bit messy. But I enjoyed the book a lot despite that.

Also this book features a prickly winter witch best friend (etc....?) and a sweet spring witch best friend (etc....?) soooo what's not to love?

I would definitely recommend this to my students and use in my classroom library!

What a fantastic idea! Sang was such a great character, just a cinnamon roll of a lad who loved plants! And Paige was just an awesome friend. I've never really seen environmentalism and climate change mixed in with witchcraft. This was a great debut, I'd like to see what Rachel Griffin does next!

It has been common for fans of the Harry Potter series to speculate as to which of the four Houses they would be in if they lived within the world of the famous ‘Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardy’. But in Rachel Griffin’s debut novel THE NATURE OF WITCHES, it instead asks if you were a witch but your magic, personality, and power lay within and was determined by a season, would you be a Spring or Summer Witch? Or perhaps you are more suited for life as a Winter or Autumn Witch? In Griffin’s novel, the witches go to the ‘Eastern School of Solar Magic’ instead to train, learn, and hone in on their seasonal magic and abilities. Many times their training classrooms were actually outside in the fields and woods of their farm acreage in the Poconos where they could manipulate the weather, the atmosphere, and the seasonal storms or natural disasters. For in Griffin’s created world, it has reached a breaking point similar to our reality. The atmosphere with its weather and climate are out of control at an unforeseen level. The author is able to cleverly layer the reality of today’s climate change with the fantasy world she built around witches and “shaders” (humans).

However, Rachel’s successful symbolism of overlapping themes and messages for today wrapped in her magical witches doesn’t end there. The ultimate of witches in the book is the Everwitch, who possesses her magic in every season rather than just one season. She can do things no other witch can possess, but their numbers are very very limited. There may only be one Everwitch in a generation, but can even skip generations as well. With environmental issues as well as the Earth’s breaking point mentioned previously, the pressures placed on this generation’s Everwitch, Clara, are at an all time high to harness her strength to establish order in again. Witches are passing away at an alarming rate, depleting all their powers to correct the atmospheric imbalance the shaders have caused. Despite many traumatic errors and harm at times to others as Clara tries to learn to control and direct her abilities with various training exercises and projects, it is revealed the answer lies in working together with the other witches. Isolation for protection and pulling the magic of a particular season’s witch isn’t enough. Through these events in the book, Griffin is able to champion and illustrate another reality of today - our success against today’s world challenges is improved by and paramount to us all working together. Only by using the joint strengths of all of us and not one person isolating or taking over can we truly triumph and save the Earth.

Finally, Griffin keeps the novel fresh and current with Clara’s present and past romances, the former being a male Spring witch Sang and the latter being a female Winter witch Paige. If a reader is still hesitant on if this is the next novel to add to their TBR stack, you may enjoy it if you also enjoyed: the X-men comics/movies, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children book series/movie, The Hunger Games book series/movies, and books by Adrienne Young like Fable. Although you don’t have to take my word for it— this debut novel already made the NYT bestseller list within 2 weeks of its release!!

P.S. For enquiring minds who would like to know more about the author and her heart, Rachel categorizes herself as a Spring witch. On another interesting note, she is now a certified NWS weather spotter. But perhaps the most revealing fact is that for every reader who preordered the book, there was one tree planted by OneTreePlanted in celebration of what Griffin believes for: “At its heart, THE NATURE OF WITCHES is a love letter to the Earth...” Knowing these fun tidbits only further enhances the reader’s immersion into the story’s experience and understanding of its author.

To view the book trailer, clink on below link:
https://www.instagram.com/tv/COQei6TgUiY/?utm_medium=copy_link

This debut novel will stay with you long after reading the final word. So much important facts are packed into the words written by @timesnewrachel - like believing in yourself, accepting and forgiving yourself, global warming and its effects... I cannot wait for my physical copy to arrive later this month!

When was the last time you read a book slowly because you loved the characters, the plot, and the writing so much that you didn't want the story to end.

I didn't read the synopsis, just the book title and cover drew me in. So, I'm not going to say much about the plot, except that I'm sure we all feel like Clara at least once in our lives - lost, hopeless, weak, scared. But the beauty of this story is that Rachel gave her hope, love, patience, and courage, even when she didn't have it.

I really liked this book! I loved Clara's journey to self discovery and the development of her relationship with Sang. It took a while to read as my tablet kept getting "borrowed" but I also wasn't driven to finish it. I recomend it!

I have been looking forward to this book for a while! I loved both The Flatshare and the Switch. I also really enjoyed reading this one, though it wasn't quite as good as the Flatshare for me. Overall though I still really enjoyed the read. I loved the quirky cast of characters and I loved how humorous the book was. The way the story was told, with THEN and NOW chapters was really well done. This story was a sweet heartwarming read with a lot of laughs and I definitely recommend it!

I'm conflicted about this book.

On the one hand, the premise was fascinating, and the magic system unique. And while it took quite a few chapters to get invested in this story, once it had my attention, it certainly kept it. This is a fun, easy read, and for a debut novel, Rachel Griffin has done an excellent job.

But I wasn’t fully satisfied with the main characters. I felt that the way Clara in particular makes her decisions and forms her thoughts throughout the novel was almost startlingly one-dimensional and simplistic.

And keeping this vague so that I don’t spoil anything, I felt that her love interest, the other main character, was too much of a “perfect guy”. Not in terms of being all powerful or any of the usual pitfalls, but the fact that he didn’t really have any flaws felt unnatural to me.

The one character who felt fully fleshed out to me was Paige, a side character. I hope to see more from her in the future!

I think, perhaps, that I was the incorrect audience for a book like this. This book description grabbed my attention by boasting a fantasy novel themed around seasonal magic. And while it was, in fact, a fantasy novel themed around seasonal magic, it felt less like a fantasy/adventure novel to me and more like a romance with fantastical elements. And I do enjoy fantasy novels that have elements of romance in them, but this was a bit too deeply focused on romance at the exclusion of other elements for me.

3.5 stars from me. I think that from someone who enjoys romance novels more than I do, this book would get at least a 4.

(Posted on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4093773407)

The writing of this really wasn't working for me. I didn't end up getting very far because the style of prose made an otherwise fun sounding story, uninteresting.

3.5 stars.

This was a comfortable read with a unique premise and a lot of room for a series continuation should the author be interested. It had a very interesting magic system that manages the earth's weather and other natural characteristics. There was an environmental undertone that wasn't totally overbearing, but did definitely come through as an allegory and something of an opinion piece. Some may be turned off by this approach, but I found it interesting.

The primary characters are fairly well constructed and their interactions feel mostly genuine, though there is a bit of instalove. The supporting characters could definitely be fledged out more and are a good portion of the reason that a series possibility exists. There is a lot in this world that could be explored and there is a lot more of the magic school that could be utilized as well. It's a bit of a treasure trove of imagination.

My primary issues with this book that prevented it from being rated higher were pacing and plot development. The pacing was a little bit slow due to some repetitious events in the plot that made things sometimes feel as if we were spinning in circles. There was a bit of monotony there that felt like the author was trying a bit too hard to get some points across rather than trusting the reader to fill in the blanks. The plot itself was overall good, but seemed a bit too restrained. There was so much more that could have been done with this premise that it felt like the story just didn't go far enough. Again, this is a reason why I think a series is a possibility.

Overall, a quick and comfortable read. Definitely not a bad debut and I think that Griffin is one to watch. She has a creative flare that is outside the norm and I think her writing could go in some fun directions.

* Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. *

Another highly anticipated release! Of course, I heard great buzz about this debut and I was pretty interested. I had an early digital copy, but it felt better reading a hard copy. Honestly, I don’t think I would have been as interested with a digital copy.

Clara has power during all seasons, unlike her other fellow witches at the academy. A lot is riding on her shoulders and she must harness her full power and control it, otherwise other witches will be at stake along with the atmosphere and weather around her.

The book wasn’t that bad, but I think I had higher expectations going off of the reactions from other readers. The details were kind of lacking in some places, like not a lot was explained or it was kept very short and terse. One thing that was more detailed were the emotions and what characters were going through, but it did feel repetitive at times. My favorite had to be when the weather would change and magic would be used against it. The details describing movements and what was going on seemed very vivid and well researched.

I thought Clara was a pretty good character. She went back and forth when it came to discovering her own strength. As soon as she would grasp on to it, she would let it go and her weakness would overpower her. She was so concerned for other people, so she wouldn’t think about herself and what positive power she could actually bring. It wasn’t annoying, but it was relatable what she was going through in her head. I did appreciate when she would stand up to her teachers that were just you-know-whats. For instance, Ms. Suntile and Mr. Burrows? Ugh, I despised them. I honestly believe some sort of arc or back story was missing from them because they acted like such villains as if they were behind a lot of what was going on, so it was a bit disappointing with how their characters were finished off at the end of the book. Kind of like a balloon deflating.

I loved Sang’s character. He’s got the handsome demeanor, but he is a botanist and is so in tune with the Earth, the flowers, trees. It was so beautiful reading when Clara would watch him tend to plants and trees and talk about the Earth. It felt pretty peaceful. So, it’s obvious that Sang and Clara are love interests. I feel like Sang nearly had insta-love compared to Clara’s feelings toward him, so I felt kind of if-y about that. He was toeing that line pretty closely, but the tension and conflict they had between and around them helped to keep that toe in place until it was the right time.

Paige is sort of a side character, sort of a main character. She is Clara’s ex and, I gotta be honest, she was pretty annoying. She had such an attitude, stemming from the break-up and the way Clara acted about “the thing” that happened that led to the break-up. She would have her soft moments, but they didn’t last long. I think she expected too much of Clara, too, but I also think it came from lingering feelings. It definitely seemed like she was still “in love” with Clara or at least still felt something for her.

All in all, this wasn’t a bad debut. I would forget sometimes that this was set in the real world until something about cell phones or buses would pop up in conversation. That’s not a bad thing, it’s just something that doesn’t happen often in books. Most of the time, the magic is set in old fantasy and I think readers are more used to that. I can see why there is so much love for this book, but I don’t think it lived all the way up to my expectations going off of other people’s reactions. Only because of the details issue I mentioned before. However, I’ll definitely pick up more of Rachel’s books in the beginning.

*I received a digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*
This book felt like one that I'd pull randomly from my school library and fall head over heels for as I turned the pages. It was equal parts cozy and high stakes.

'The Nature of Witches': 4⭐

(Unpaid Review: thank you @netgalley, @sourcefirebooks and @rachelgriffin for allowing me to read this eArc in exchange for a review)

The cover and title of this book was what attracted me first. Only then I read the synopsis and fell instantly hooked. It was an inspirational read and such a different perspective on the theme of witches, it got me stunned from the very first line.
The book talks about changing seasons (the cover actually gives that away) and the power of the witches is connected to that change.
Without giving you any spoilers, I can tell you this one is definitely worth the read. It's phenomenal in every sense of the word.