Wild is the Witch by Rachel Griffin

Synopsis

When eighteen-year-old witch Iris Gray accidentally enacts a curse that could have dire consequences, she must team up with a boy who hates witches to make sure her magic isn’t unleashed on the world.

Iris Gray knows witches aren’t welcome in most towns. When she was forced to leave her last home, she left behind a father who was no longer willing to start over. And while the Witches’ Council was lenient in their punishment, Iris knows they’re keeping tabs on her. Now settled in Washington, Iris never lets anyone see who she really is; instead, she vents her frustrations by writing curses she never intends to cast. Otherwise, she spends her days at the wildlife refuge which would be the perfect job if not for Pike Alder, the witch-hating aspiring ornithologist who interns with them.

Iris concocts the perfect curse for Pike: one that will turn him into a witch. But just as she’s about to dispel it, a bird swoops down and steals the curse before flying away. If the bird dies, the curse will be unleashed―and the bird is a powerful amplifier, and unleashing the curse would turn not just Pike, but everyone in the region, into a witch.

New witches have no idea how to control their magic and the consequences would be dire. And the Witches’ Council does not look kindly on multiple offenses; if they found out, Iris could be stripped of her magic for good. Iris begs Pike to help her track the bird, and they set out on a trek through the Pacific Northwest looking for a single bird that could destroy everything.

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Review

If The Nature of Witches was a story that slowly crept into my soul, then Wild is the Witch is one that struck me like lighting. From the first page I loved Iris, Pike and MacGuffin. Their journey together wasn’t an easy one but it was a beautiful one.

Griffin has to be one of the most eloquent writers I’ve come across. I’ve never tabbed or annotated a book before, but after reading a few pages I decided this was the book to do it for. From the wistful prose to the almost lyrical descriptions, I couldn’t get enough of how she described nature and magic. The way Iris saw herself and her love of her magic made me want to take a look in the mirror and find one thing that I loved that much about myself. My favorite scenes though were those little romantic moments between Pike and Iris.

From their first scene together, Pike and Iris had that spark. They were constantly dancing around each other and teasing (or slightly roasting) one another. What Iris thought was hate was actually this deep seated connection that jumped off the page. They definitely needed the journey to find the owl though to really get to know one another and see each other in a different way. It was a journey/adventure story in more than one way.

MacGuffin, that damn owl, stole my heart and refused to give it back. I’m so glad he and Griffin decided to take us on this journey of love and loss and for showing us how sometimes you can survive what you think is worst thing that could happen and come out the other side.