Thank you to Netgalley for this advanced copy of THE NATURE OF WITCHES. This was a whirlwind book and I really enjoyed it. I'm excited for more from this author.

I loved this story so so much! The characters were all delightful, the message was beautiful, and the atmosphere of the entire story was just *chefs kiss*. This is a story of love, loss, betrayal, acceptance, being kind, and being nice to our planet. I think everyone should read this and truly absorb what this book is about.

Initial Thoughts
At first, when I saw this book, I told myself I wasn't interested in it. I have no idea why, but I had this idea, that I didn't really care about this release. Then, I started seeing people talking about it. Then, the publisher offered it as a Read Now to the first 500 people who downloaded on NetGalley and I just new, I needed to read it.

Some Things I Liked
The romances. I adored the romance plots in this book. I loved the way they were personified through the seasons. I saw romances, plural, because we got to explore Clara's past loves as well as the love that blossomed during this story.
Clara as a main character. I adored her and her inner monologues. She was real and raw and said everything I know I'd be thinking in her shoes. She was morally grey at times and completely selfless at others. She was perfect.
Sang. What I'd give for an epilogue or short story from Sang's POV. Sang was a wonderful contrast to Clara and I loved his role in the story. Present enough to be memorable but not overbearing because this is Clara's story.
The statement on nature and our world. I loved the metaphors used in this book to describe the state nature in the world today.

Series Value
I'd love more books set in this world and more stories about Clara. However, this feels right as a standalone. There's a certain ambiguity and mystery to the ending that I think is best left up to the reader's imagination.

Final Thoughts
Here's the part of my review where I eat crow because I can't believe I ever thought this wasn't a book I wanted to read. This was a phenomenal debut and I can't wait to read more of Rachel Griffin's future works.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book about witches whose powers are connected to the four seasons and how things like climate change can be impacted by magic.

But I have a few questions...

Do seasonal witches gain or lose their powers based on their location? Because witches in Australia would be totally screwed if they had this fantastic snow power in the dead of summer. And if their powers are activated by location, why wouldn't they just move to keep their power longer? If breaking their connection with the sun strips them of power, how does that work indoors? What about a lead-lined box?

So yes, fun read, but I did get quite distracted by all of the possibilities.

First, thank you for giving my the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for a review!

I first heard about this book on TikTok. A fellow reader had just finished reading it and made a review about the book. I instantly had to have it. I was so excited that I was able to get it through NetGalley! The book lived up to my expectations in every single way. It was a quick, fun read. I was unable to put it down. I have always loved a good witch storyline, and the aspect of witches being tied to the seasons was very intriguing! I also enjoyed that it was set it modern times. I would recommend this book to any fantasy fans! It truly was a great read!

Rachel Griffins debut "The Nature of Witches" is an extremely gripping and beautifully written novel. While reading it, it felt like Rachel put all my thoughts about the seasons, everything I feel during summer, autumn, winter and spring into words. I connected very strongly with protagonist Clara Densmore. She is an Everwitch and is tied to all four seasons, It is a very rare kind of witch and Clara is the first one in about 200 years. Everyone expects something of her but she struggles to control her magic. It tends to kill the people she loves most, so she isolates herself as best as she can to prevent such things from happening.
But the shaders (normal people who are no witches) destroyed the earth so much that an Everwith is needed to maintain the climate as best as possible. So Clara must learn to control her magic.
I loved every single chapter in this book so so much. There are a lot of feelings between the words. Clara feels extremely lonely and struggles to love magic or even herself. Her power did nothing good to her, so it is perfectly comprehensible why she hates it so much.
After a tragic accident her training schedule is changed and a Sang, a student from another school takes over her trainig. Clara begins to trust him and their relationship is so beautiful. It made me feel all the feels. I loved Sang as a character, because he is kind, he loves botany and he never puts Clara under pressure. Step by step, she learns to accept herself. But of course her feelings for Sang are growing and she knows that her magic always seeks out the ones closest to her.
The story is full of emotion. Claras feelings for Sang, her feelings for her ex-girlfriend Paige and all the self-loath. But it is also filled with the beauty of nature. Griffin captures the seasons so precisely. I felt really understood in my love for nature. I also just love the concept of witches who are tied to one of the four seasons and need to help maintain the climate. The book is also very relevant regarding climate change and all the things we do to destroy the earth.
I loved everything about this story. It has an amazing main character, who really grows throughout the story, a sweet lovestory, beautiful writing and a gripping plot, that really flows naturally. "the Nature of Witches" definitely became a new favourite for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review!

“It won’t always be easy. In fact, there will be days that are so miserable you’ll wonder why you do this at all. But I promise you one thing: it will be worth it.”

This is one hell of a debut. Just the idea of solar witches—witches whose magic is tied to an individual season—drew me in immediately. Both a character driven story and one of magic and fantasy, Rachel Griffin blends together both real and fictional elements and creates a stunning and easy to understand world. The magic system and overarching conflict was explained thoroughly and concisely without any dense info dumping. Don’t even get me started on the writing itself—it flowed beautifully and was just incredibly stunning. I tore through this book more for the writing style itself than for the plot, honestly. I cannot speak highly enough about how lovely the author’s writing style is.

And the characters! I absolutely loved how Clara’s sexuality was portrayed; it’s not made into a huge deal and in fact isn’t even specifically mentioned. She’s loved a woman. She’s loved a man. It’s as simple as that. Sang, too, was such a refreshing character. The softness to counter Clara’s hard edges, it was nice to see this kind of role reversal that strays away from typical gender norms. I’ve seen criticism on how selfish and bratty Clara is—and it’s true! and characters will call her on it and then enable it in the same breath!—but it just made her feel seventeen. So often teenagers are written as acting older than their age, but Clara felt like a typical, self absorbed teenager. She’s lost everyone she’s loved and she’s literally being told the future of the world is on her shoulders; seeing how this trauma influenced her outlook on life felt very real. Sure, it could be infuriating, but annoying doesn’t mean unrealistic.

Honestly, I don’t have too many complaints. There are moments throughout the books where it falls into the trap of telling instead of showing, making some dialogue awkward and clunky because there’s too much exposition in it. Also, despite how much I loved the idea of the characters, I couldn’t really get invested in them (the exception: Paige). I didn’t necessarily root for any of them or for any of the relationships. And while I still genuinely enjoyed this book—a huge testament to the author’s clear talents—I know too that it could’ve been even better.

Overall, The Nature of Witches was a quick, easy, and enjoyable read. With an easy to understand magic system and fantasy setting, it’s a wonderfully light read. It has its flaws, but the absolute beauty of the writing style makes up for it.

What a debut from Rachel Griffin!! The Nature of Witches is a vibrant, magical tale of witches who control the weather in a world whose climate is quickly spiraling into chaos. Witches are each connected to a particular season, but Clara, an Everwitch, is tied to all four seasons. Her power could be the key to saving countless lives if she could overcome the fear that keeps her bound.

Sensual and stirring, the world that Griffin has created drew me in and held me captive until the final page. Griffin’s love of the natural world is evident through her rich and vivid imagery as the seasons change and Clara’s magic along with them. I want to be able to plant my emotions and have flowers grow. I want to stand in the middle of a cyclone of autumn leaves. With every season, I kept thinking “this is my favorite!” And Sang--what a swoony love interest! He’s so steady and calm to her changeability. He was the perfect foil.

The Nature of Witches is a YA debut that should be on everyone’s TBR. This complex story about loss and grief, love and stepping into your power is utterly magnificent. It completely blew me away (pun not intended).

Thanks to Sourcebooks Fire for my e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.)

Difficult one for me here. I went into this book from the summary with “If the humans are destroying the world then let go to show them what they did.” Sadly, I am one of those people that falls under the “reap what you sow” type. It is a good read for anyone that loves witches, friendship, unique magic, or saving the world from stupid people that will never change. Characters, plot, and writing were all fine but nothing groundbreaking.

Advertised as "Practical Magic meets Twister", The Nature of Witches immediately grabbed my attention when I first heard about it (those are legit two movies I adore with my whole heart). As much as I enjoy immersing myself in a high Fantasy concept, there's something special about magic meeting our contemporary world, which this book does instead.
In this specific instance, witches have always lived among humans and helped them regulate the atmosphere and climate. But humans, as they tend to do in every reality it seems, wanted more. They went against the witches' recommendations and tried to inhabit parts of the planet that should have been left to nature, always trying to push the limits further, until the Earth could take no more and the atmosphere became too erratic to be tamed by magic even.

As far as general premises go, this was something that interested me right away, because I loved the idea of mirroring our real life climate crisis in a magical way. However, the book only carried this idea as an underlying theme to propel the main character, Clara, further in her journey of accepting herself. Told from her POV, you mostly deal with her inner and very personal struggle. As an Everwitch, she can control magic no matter the season, whereas other witches are at their strongest or weakest depending on the time of year. Clara's not just the only Everwitch there is, but because it has been so long since the last one lived, no one really knows what her powers entail, just that she is stronger and more dangerous and their only hope at counteracting the humans' destruction. The danger in her abilities manifests specifically whenever she loses control, because her rampant magic seeks the people she loves the most and kills them, hence why she is reluctant to form any attachment to the people in her life. 

While reading the book, I understood where Clara's trauma came from. Imagine having powers you never asked for and that no one knows how to control, just to see them take every person you love from you at the slightest mistake. The conclusion that you would need to isolate yourself makes sense, but it still put the story in a repetitive loop, because not getting attached to anyone simply isn't realistic. We are not even talking about romantic love here, but any kindness can make the heart grow fonder. Still, Clara focuses a lot on her romantic entanglements, which include her ex-girlfriend Paige and her current love interest Sang. I was personally more invested in Paige's side of things, simply because she seemed like one of the few people willing to call out Clara when she was being self-centered and their history was really interesting. Sang, on the other hand, was one of the loveliest and sweetest characters. He was so supportive and exuded a calm that I wish I possessed too, but somehow I didn't feel the depth of their love as much as it was described on the page.


All of this was a surprisingly quick read as you breeze through the seasons, but despite the dangerous situations the characters were put in, I didn't feel the urgency of the plot. Usually, when it comes to magic, I try to just accept what I'm told, but I struggled a bit with the logistics. Here are a couple of examples that didn't make sense to me entirely:

Every witch has their own seasons (Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter) in which they are born, their personality is affected by and their magic is the strongest. However, seasons aren't technically bound to certain months. They are marked by weather patterns and daylight hours, completely different depending on where you live on the planet. So, if a Summer witch didn't want to see her powers wane after three months, wouldn't they just be of better use in a different geographical area? 
Clara had to live in a shed in the woods all by herself after a fatal incident with her powers, to make sure she wouldn't get attached to any of her other classmates who lived together in dorms. This technically seems logical, but then they pair her with one person to train her alone, be it a teacher for years or a newly introduced person her age. If you spend time with someone in close proximity and they are your only close contact, you will form an attachment. People tend to grow on you over time, so this course of action was an odd choice for me, because it obviously counteracted what they were trying to do.
The big final plan (which I won't go into detail about) was reckless, could have backfired so badly and was purely based on a hunch. Never mind that we don't fully understand what happened or why it was necessary exactly, but it seemed to be a cure all.

Finally, this may not have been everything I'd hoped it would be, but the writing was beautiful, especially when it came to the weather and plant life. I also really liked the little quotes at the beginning of each chapter. They were a nice touch and I don't want to reveal anything, but loved how it came full circle in the final chapters. Something about them worked so well as affirmations, you didn't even have to be a witch to feel like they could be helpful to you as well.

Fazit: 3/5 stars! Very interesting concept and quick read, although it didn't live up to my expectations!

Series Info/Source: I got a copy of this book from NetGalley to review. This is a stand alone book.

Story (4/5): I really enjoyed a lot about this story. It explores a lot of topics; climate change, coming of age, and has a love story too. The story is pretty linear and fairly simple. There isn't a lot of action but the magic system is intriguing and Clara spends a lot of time in thought and introspection.

This story does have some problems as well. The idea of there being only one Ever witch that can address the whole world's climate problems is a bit ridiculous, this is kind of briefly addressed towards the end of the book with a single sentence but was dealt with clumsily. Also the way things wrapped up with the eclipse seemed completely contrived and out of the blue and didn't really jive with the rest of the magic system.

Characters (4/5): Clara was a bit whiny and vanilla for me. She spends a lot of time complaining about what she can’t do rather than what she could do. I do sympathize with her past and the fact that her power has hurt people she loved, which scares her. I enjoyed Sang a lot more, he was just such an amazing character. The other side characters are okay but feel a bit underdeveloped.

Setting (4/5): This is set in the near future where extreme weather has become even worse because of damage to the environment (which was weird because I just finished “Migrations” too which was set in a similar setting). The setting is on the East Coast in a rural area. I loved the idea of seasonal witches and the way the magic system works to help them modulate weather. This was creative and well done.

Writing Style (4/5): The story structure is fairly simple and is told completely from Clara’s viewpoint. I loved the epitaphs at the beginning of each chapter and how symbolic they ended up being, that was very clever. The writing was well done, flowed smoothly and the description throughout was beautiful. This is a bit more of an introspective book and we spend a lot of time in Clara’s head following her thoughts. It was well done and the book has kind of a quiet peaceful tone to it despite all the intense weather scenes.

My Summary (4/5): Overall I really enjoyed this. Aside from some small issues around how the story was tied up, this was really well done and really beautifully written. I would recommend reading if you think the combination of weather magic and climate change sound intriguing. This is an excellent debut novel and I will definitely be checking out future books by this author.

This is a story that should have had it all. Magic and climate change and metaphors relating to real life. And yet. And yet it didn’t click together. I didn’t love the characters and I had a hard time pushing through to the end.

I was so excited for this book based on the summary, and was thrilled to get a copy on NetGalley. Unfortunately, I found it difficult to get into personally, and ultimately DNF’d about a quarter of the way through.

The nature of witches is a totally different tale on witches. I’ve never read a story that combined witches and their control over the environment. I was hooked immediately. Clara is an everwitch and goes to a school to train witches. I really loved this . It was a light quick read for me

I love THE NATURE OF WITCHES by Rachel Griffin! It focuses on Clara, a young witch who is the first in several hundred years to be born an Ever. This means that, unlike her fellow witches who each have a set of powers connected to the season in which they were born, Clara's powers change with the seasons. Her teachers at her magic school believe that she has untold powers that will help the witches on their quest to save humanity and the world from the damage wrought by non-witches, called Shaders. However, Clara has a history of losing control of her magic. When this happens, it goes after the ones she loves, so she has plans to step into the path of an eclipse come summer and be stripped of her powers.

While this book has things in common with other works of YA where the protagonist is a sort of "chosen one," the plot felt fresh and engaging and the characters are realistic and lovable. Clara's romance with Sang is sweet and heartwarming, and the side characters are complex and interesting. The imagery of nature is beautiful, and it's easy to imagine this book being adapted for Netflix in the next few years. I'll definitely be picking up a copy for my classroom library.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for the eARC.

Let's get this out of the way first: this book was not on my list and I had no real desire to read it. I'm just not really a fan of witchy books. I thought the synopsis sounded interesting but ... eh.

Well thank the Sun for the publisher providing me a copy of this e-ARC in exchange for my honest review. Without that I would have missed this absolute gem of a book.

The magic system is so unique and the characters and their backgrounds so fleshed out. Even though it was technically and alternative earth, it felt so real. I was sucked into Clara's story immediately and I read this entire book in one sitting and then immediately pre-ordered this book for my sister.

Honestly, the only problem I encountered with this book is that it was over too soon!

This was one of my most anticipated releases of 2021 and I was so excited to be able to read an advance copy. The story and characters did not disappoint.

What a wonderful novel! Witches, who for centuries have maintained the climate, are losing their power as the atmosphere becomes more erratic, and all hope for a better future lies with Clara Densmore, an Everwitch whose rare magic is tied to every season.

*Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an e-arc of this phenomenal novel.*

This book wasn’t for me unfortunately. I was expecting a lot more action and drama than there was. After the big excitement in the beginning, it stagnated for me. It felt like a much more character driven story that I was expecting. Others may like that, but it’s not the type of books I go for. I liked the entire concept;
Witches protecting the environment and climate, but I get lost in the details along the way.

The Nature of Witches has an interesting and unique concept. And as a tree hugger myself, I resonate with the global warming theme found in this novel. I can really appreciate any human effort that encourages our future (young adults) to tackle very pressing issues. To encourage them to really sit back and think about the consequences (of actions that weren’t theirs), if we don’t start doing something now. This is an important message that kids and teenagers need to hear and receive. So in that regard, I think Rachel Griffin did a great job.

But there is more to the story than an extreme weather warning…

And it didn’t quite work all that well for me. When this happens, I always make the very obvious comment: I’m not the intended audience. So that does hold weight in my reviews and ratings. Just know that.

So my greatest issue with this story is assault is confused with strength. Our protagonist, Clara, is put into a very terrible situation to entice her magical capabilities. This elicits a strong angry re-action, rightfully. But to closed fist punch a male instructor, it didn’t initially cause me to blink an eye. But the second instance, it changed my perspective and it became an issue. The next instance, Clara was simply pissed and she pushed another male instructor (Sang - who she trusts and likes). This got me thinking more about the first instance where her anger became physical. And the other character gave her accolades and told her how cool it was. Sorry, I don’t think its cool to have your protagonist react physically when she is feeling angry especially when you make it a pattern. I want to believe Rachel Griffin was trying to portray a fierce, female protagonist. But it did the exact opposite. Honestly, I found the physical assault inclusions kind of unnecessary.

I will compliment the detail and descriptions written by Griffin. She certainly paints the words into a vibrant, terrifying picture. Additionally, I really like the LGBTQ+ inclusion for YA readers. Characters with diverse sexual interests are becoming much more common in reading. And as a librarian, I love that for readers.

Thank you NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for the read!