Are you looking for a fabulous book with themes of magical realism and specifically plant magic? Witch Of Wild Things by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland is an absolute must read. Witch Of Wild Things follows Sage Flores who left her hometown eight years ago -- after her sister Sky passed away. Sage, however, returns when offered a job with the Cranberry Rose Company identifying new plants. Oh, but it turns out one of her coworkers is an old crush - Tennessee Reyes. While Sage has been gone, her other sister Teal has been in a really unhealthy relationship. Oh, and apparently the Flores family is cursed. So, yeah, Sage is staying with her aunt Nadia who has some things going on as well. And throughout is a thread of magic too -- particularly an affinity with plants.

When I say I want a witch book, I mean I want something along the lines of Witch Of Wild Things. This book is so cozy. Gilliland's writing is captivating and I fell in love with the. characters. There's also scenes featuring AIM and IYKYK. I love a throwback. Also loved how all the threads came together and the book ended up resolving. It hit everything I wanted. Also -- can we talk about the chemistry between Sage and Tenn. Whooooo. Of course, there's miscommunication trope and a reason why Sage holds herself apart from Tenn and doesn't trust him at first. But, well, let's just say again everything resolves perfectly. If you are looking for a book that gives autumnal feelings, pick up Witch Of Wild Things immediately. Also, I listened to the audiobook version narrated by Krysta Gonzales who is so charming in the 8 hours and 59 minutes this book takes to listen to.

After the death of her sister, Sage has done everything to stay away from her family and their magic. When circumstances bring her back to her hometown, she inevitably succumbs to her family's ways. When her job lands her right back into the arms of her long time highschool crush, nothing seems to go right. Will she ever fess up to being his internet crush? This was a very enjoyable read. It was unique and entertaining. Thank you, NetGalley, for the eARC. 4 stars.

This is a lovely love story, but it’s also a magical tale about sisters and family, grief, forgiveness, rediscovering and rebuilding, taking care of the natural world, and more. Raquel Vasquez Gilliland infuses her stories with magic at a sentence level, and this one is a great example. This story touched my heart in several ways.
Note: my only slight issue is that I was way more invested in the sister/magic part than I was in the romance. It wasn’t a bad romance by any means, I just thought the other elements were more compelling.

What a perfect fall read also such a cute witchy read ! I loved it so much and the ending was just everything

This book is the absolute perfect book for a little witchy feeling. It was warm, witchy, fall vibes, and filled with beautiful family dynamics and feelings.

This book is the perfect blend of magic, romance, and sisterhood. I loved the storytelling, the nostalgic moments, and the beautiful magic system at the center. But the most heartwarming part was the relationship between the sisters.

✔️ Secret Identity
✔️ Second Chance
✔️ Magical Realism
✔️ Workplace

Sage is not in a good place; she recently lost her job, her boyfriend, and is still mourning the loss of her sister. She moves back to her hometown where her family situation is strained, and finds a job working with plants (perfect since that's her magical gift). Unfortunately, one of her coworkers is Tennessee - he childhood crush and the one who broke her heart.

There's a lot happening in this book but it all unfolds beautifully. Lots of exploration on themes of healing,
loss, love, forgiveness, family, and strength in vulnerability.

The magic worldbuilding felt effortless here (which probably means it took a lot of effort!). I loved how each Flores woman had their own magical gift and I loved how it dovetailed with something they had to learn/overcome. Here with Sage and plants there were a couple of great ones that we can all take to heart: we can thrive under the right care and the right environment; not all of us (or all plants) need or want the same things); even when parts feel withered and dry, growth and healing is still possible.

5⭐️

Steam 🔥🔥
Banter 🗣️🗣️🗣️
Swoon 💕💕💕💕

I like to read witchy/spooky books for the month of October leading up to Halloween, which led me to pick this up. It was enjoyable; I think it will be popular in our collection as witch stories are getting lots of attention of late.

First Thoughts: I wish I had magical gifts
Mood While Reading: Stormy- My mood was all over!
Song: Breathless By The Corrs

At the beginning of this month I was on a witchy kick. I read so many titles that featured witches and Raquel Vasquez Gilliland's Witch of Wild Things by far surprised me the most.

For starters, let's just talk about how beautiful the cover for this novel is! The illustrator truly captures the beauty and complexity of the story that lines between the covers. Raquel Vasquez Gilliland created a family of "cursed" Flores women. Each touched by a little magic. Sage has been running from her family and her "gift" ever since her sister, Sky died. Alas, her running has come to an end. Sage is reluctantly back in her hometown and is putting her gift to use at her old job at the Cranberry Rose Company. Her sister's ghost is haunting her with cups of coffee, her other sister is angry and causing lightening storms, and unresolved family pain is resurfacing like a tidal wave.

This book may include a romance, but this story, to me, is about love, loss, and forgiveness. The strength of family ties and the depths of despair that can occur when those bonds are broken. Mending a broken heart can feel futile, but these beautiful sisters prove that sometimes that fight is worth fighting until your very last breath.

A big thanks to PRH Audio and Berkley Publishing for granting me access to this title. This one will stick with me. There was so much beauty in the pages of this novel that touched my heart.

TW: Domestic abuse

This story was pure magic. It's a beautiful, magical love story with a magicai family dynamic included. It deals with second chances and forgiveness. I enjoyed this whole story and could not get enough of it. I love this story and the journey that it took me on.

This is one of the most compelling story I have ever read, flawlessly written with utterly captivating set of characters and magically cozy storyline. Definitely a must-read.

3.5 rounded up tp four. This could have been a solid 4, but it used some tropes I just don't enjoy which knocked it down some. I am still exploring my taste in adult romance, but knowing I've liked RVG's YA romance I decided to give this one a try.

There is a lot of leading to what is eventually revealed, and while I don't think it's bad, it was obvious what the "twist" would be, even if you weren't sure how it would play out.

While the book isn't necessarily giving fall vibes, it was a fun and cozy fall read.

Witch of Wild Things is a quiet novel of magical realism, family trauma, growing up too fast, healing and finding love. It's definitely a slow-burn (at times a bit too slow I would argue) but I ended up really liking where it went.

The Flores women all have magical gifts, but whether they are a gift or a curse is up for debate and loss has hurt relationships between some of them. Sage has an affinity for plants, but she's been nearly estranged from her family ever since her younger sister Sky died. Now she's forced to return to her hometown and confront her past, but can their family heal from all the brokenness? Meanwhile she has a new job where she's thrown together with the teenage crush who unknowingly broke her heart...

I did find this to be slow-going at times, but it ended up being a really beautiful portrait of healing both romantic and familial love, with a bit of magic along the way. I would recommend it, just expect it to take some time to get through. I received a copy of this book for review via NetGalley, all opinions are my own.

✨ Review ✨ Witch of Wild Things by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland

The book follows Sage Flores and the women in her family, all of whom have special gifts. She returns home to live her with sister Teal and aunt Nadia, as well as the ghost of her sister Sky who died while hiking as a 16yo. Sage, now 28, starts working with a local farm, including her high school crush Tennessee Reyes, to find local rare plants for the farm to cultivate and sell. Her power connects her to plants -- helping to identify them, learn their stories, and find out what they want. She uses this to seek and find plants and to change their destinies.

I liked the magic and the relationships in this book, but there was something that didn't quite hit for me. I think that while it read like an adult romance, there was something about the characters (even though they were 28 and 29ish), that just didn't feel like they were adult. In addition, there's an initial romantic tension (who will Sage choose?) that just made me a little uncomfortable.

Overall, this was enjoyable though, and a fun fall read! I bet it would also have been great as an audiobook! I loved the Latinx representation, as well as the descriptions of foods and plants!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️(3.5-4ish)
Genre: magical realism, contemporary f/m romance
Setting: small town Virginia
Pub Date: September 2023

Read this if you like:
⭕️ plants and flowers and mushrooms and wildlife
⭕️ messy family / sister stories
⭕️ man in a romance who's a great listener
⭕️ magical realism

Thanks to Berkley and #netgalley for an advanced e-copy of this book!

4.5 Stars

This story made me feel *so* many things. It’s exactly my kind of romance in the sense that, yes, the romance is one of the primary driving forces in the story, but there’s also so much happening internally for the main character, and so many disparate parts of their life that feed into their ability to accept and express love. Because that’s how life works! You don’t just experience romantic feelings or any other kind of deeply connected intimate feelings on one plane and then experience the rest of your life in another. It all tangles up together. Your past, your fears, your doubts, your emotional baggage, your scars all inform the ways in which you navigate intimacy and relationships.

So yes, there *is* an absolutely delightful and heart-warming second chance romance—with a dash of the forced proximity and mistaken identity tropes—that’s front and center in the story, and that’s wonderful. But more importantly, the story is about this deeply fractured family of women who are still struggling to heal from the past. All of them are carrying doubt, anger, grief and regret with them every single day, especially regarding the loss of their younger sister, and it affects their ability to not only connect with other people but also with themselves.

There’s a really great parallel between these two very different kinds of grief that Sage is dealing with. On the one hand, she feels a lot of guilt and misplaced responsibility for what happened to her sister. It’s hard for her to come to grips with that. And she’s also secretly grieving this past heartache that happened with Tenn that sometimes overshadows their current relationship in some ways. Add that to this magic that she’s still hiding, that she’s still ashamed of to some extent, and also this very tumultuous history of being used and mistreated and discarded by men, and that grief takes on a whole new weight.

That’s why this budding relationship with Tenn is so moving, so gentle, so resonant, because he’s very careful with her, he’s very intentional in what he does. He makes her feel seen, and wanted, and chosen. His presence is comforting to the point where she feels safe sharing things she never talks about. And that’s ultimately what the story is building towards: how love means never having to hide yourself—even the unsavory, unlikeable, complicated, allegedly “unloveable” parts of yourself—and that it’s okay to break sometimes, especially because broken pieces can be used to create something new, something better and even more beautiful.

To me, this was such a cozy romance. There’s definitely a sense of warmth, and comfort, and closeness to the story, especially with the small town vibes and the magical realism. I loved the complexity of the characters, the gentleness of the second chance romance, and overall this story just left my heart feeling so incredibly full. I would love to read more from the Flores family in the future!

There are a lot of elements within the story that make this an enjoyable read. Not sure if the one sort of "twist" worked entirely but perhaps that's because I had no issues believing in all the gifts of the family and there was something too neat about the reveal.

WITCH OF WILD THINGS is an enchanting story of love and family bonds with a hint of whimsy. Vasquez Gilliland effortlessly brought together a narrative containing the struggles of coping with loss, the emotions of past hurt, and the possibilities of a happier future.

This book was a surprise for me. It was a quick read with all the feels and a positively charming story. The way the author wove in the powers of the Flores women was perfectly done. There was never anything that seemed out of place. It all made sense within the family history as well as who these women are when we meet things in the present. Then you have Sage. I loved the whole development of this character. She popped off the page with her honesty and how her interactions were with all those around her.

All in all, this was a delightful read. It wasn’t dark or twisty. It was real and at times magical. Vasquez Gilliland truly wrote a tale for romance lovers and those who like a little touch of the supernatural.

This was SO good. I have read RVG's previous YA title and enjoyed this FAR more. I am so glad she's made this pivot to this new genre because it was a hit for me. The magic especially was really delightful and comforting.

Rating: 4.25 stars
Spice Level: 1.5/5

This was a wonderful, cozy, romcom with a dash of magic and paranormal happenings. I absolutely adored Sage as a main character and Tenn as a love interest. Their chemistry was off the charts! It was so easy to connect with Sage and her fears, confusion, and pain as she returned home after being away for so long and navigated the complicated relationships she’s left behind. She was a little messy, and she makes some awful decisions, but despite that, she’s easy to love and even easier to root for.
Second chance romance is one of my absolute favorite tropes—and this iteration was so fun. Tenn and Sage were best friends—and maybe something more?—via IM as teenagers. Every chapter begins with excerpts of their messages that show you how it all went down over a decade ago. I actually cannot express how I <i>perfectly</i> Raquel Vasquez Gilliland captures that awkward teenaged text-flirting. I genuinely don’t think that I’ve ever read a more authentic feeling set of teenaged messages. I did find the build up of “why it all blew up” to be a bit too drawn out. By the time we find out, I was sick of Sage vaguely saying “before he broke my heart” with no other context every other page for the first 2/3 of the book. At some point the annoyance of the repetitive vagueness outweighs the tension building that comes with withholding information. It’s a hard balance to strike, and unfortunately I don’t think this book quite nails it.
However, I did love Tenn and Sage’s interactions in the present day too. I mean—the banter, the angst, the swoon. I was so sold on them and I could feel myself falling for Tenn right alongside Sage. I was constantly on the edge of my seat waiting for the next time they would interact.

There was also a lot to this book outside of the romance too. Sage has just returned to her family home after being away for eight years and the dynamic is complicated, to say the least. She doesn’t get along with her surviving sister, nor particularly with her aunt, the woman who raised her. There’s discussions of childhood neglect, abandonment, grief, and domestic abuse. Because this book is so short, none of these topics get much page time, and I do think that does a bit of detriment to the story. Almost every relationship—with the exception of Sage and Tenn and Sage and Sky’s ghost—felt underdeveloped. None of the other characters have much depth to them. This especially felt true of Teal. She plays such an integral role in the story, but she didn’t have much personal depth or development.
I really did enjoy Sage’s interactions with Sky. I felt connected to their relationship. However, I wish the book touched on the grief of it all more. It felt like that should have been a massive aspect of Sage’s life. Her sister, whom she loved, was tragically dead. Yet her grief was never addressed, didn’t play a role in the story. I understand that it had been 8 years, but Sage actively ran away from it all, and now she’s back. That should drag up some amount of grief, and yet Tenn’s grief is explored more significantly than Sage’s ever is.

Though aspects left me wanting more, this book was, over all, a very fun, sweoony read. I look forward to Raquel Vasquez Gilliland’s future releases and I will be picking up any other romances she writes. She has an engaging voice and a way with romance. This is a wonderful addition to a spooky season TBR—or a wonderful read any time of the year, as well.

Witch of Wild Things is a magical realism romance novel centered around Sage Flores and her family. The women in Sage's family are all gifted. Sage can connect to plants, her sister Teal's moods impact the weather, and her deceased sister Sky had a special relationship with animals. Despite it not being one of her gifts, Sage also sees the ghost of her deceased sister Sky every time she cries.

Sage has returned home to Cranberry after losing her beloved job due to budget cuts. She finds herself working at the nursery where she worked as a teenager alongside Tennessee, who broke her heart many years ago. They are tasked with finding new plants for the nursery to increase their sales, and the forced proximity causes Sage to question whether she is really over Tenn and whether she wants to be.

I thought the atmosphere of this one was really lovely. There were some things within the story that I didn't completely love, and it teetered on the line of being too cheesy while also containing some heavier topics. I liked the last third the most, and overall I did enjoy the experience of reading this book. I would definitely read more from Raquel!

Thank you to Berkeley Romance and Netgalley for an eARC. All thoughts are my own.