Ratings11
Average rating3.6
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Nature of Witches and Wild is the Witch comes a lush romantic fantasy about forbidden love, the choices we make, and the pull between duty and desire. *Featuring an exclusive case only available on the first print run! Tana Fairchild's fate has never been in question. Her life has been planned out since the moment she was born: she is to marry the governor's son, Landon, and secure an unprecedented alliance between the witches of her island home and the mainlanders who see her very existence as a threat. Tana's coven has appeased those who fear their power for years by releasing most of their magic into the ocean during the full moon. But when Tana misses the midnight ritual—a fatal mistake—there is no one she can turn to for help...until she meets Wolfe. Wolfe claims he is from a coven that practices dark magic, making him one of the only people who can help her. But he refuses to let Tana's power rush into the sea, and instead teaches her his forbidden magic. A magic that makes her feel powerful. Alive. As the sea grows more violent, her coven loses control of the currents, a danger that could destroy the alliance as well as her island. Tana will have to choose between love and duty, between loyalty to her people and loyalty to her heart. Marrying Landon would secure peace for her coven but losing Wolfe and his wild magic could cost her everything else.
Reviews with the most likes.
What a beautiful piece of work. The inclusion of witch lore that you've heard before but with a little bit of a twist. The first half of the book felt a bit slower for me as it was slow and there was a lot of setting up the world and and the history of a coven that lives in fear of the mortal “mainlanders.” The second half of the book sucked me in.
It's just another paint-by-numbers paranormal YA.
Tana is a blad protagonist. She's supposedly 19 but sounds 15. She suffers from a bad case of insta-love with the ever-brooding and boring Wolfe. The forbidden romance was supposed to be the pull of this novel but I didn't care enough about these two to be concerned with whether they end up together or not. He basically tells her he hates her and everything she stands for but he also has ‘feelings' for her and her reaction is ‘this is true love'.
The theme of forbidden magic, another pivotal element, didn't receive the detailed treatment I had hoped for. Instead, it was presented as a somewhat vague concept that required unquestioning acceptance.
In sum, my reading experience can best be described as “meh.” While the book had the potential to captivate, it left me feeling indifferent.
Witchy fantasy about coming into your powers, questioning what you've been told your whole life, and being true to one's self. I thought this was a well written story with a good premise and good characters. Kind of frustrated with the FMC's decisions at times but not mad about it because it felt intentional to the character's growth.