I’ve been really curious about Gathering Water for a long time now. It’s been in my library for a long time and I finally got the chance to read it! I was not disappointed. There is a lot that is amazing about the first book in the Gathering Water Trilogy by Regan Claire.
Gathering Water Is Amazing!
Claire’s writing style is amazing. All of her characters were detailed in ways that you can imagine them in your life; even the smaller characters that aren’t fully incorporated into the plot, but are important to the story line. The ability to write like that without boring you and without taking away from the main plot is an important skill.
The plot was amazing too! Imagine growing up in the foster system your whole life because your mother died giving birth to you, only to be handed a bomb in the form of a family that didn’t know you existed (aside from the grandfather) and a secret that challenges everything you believed in – all the day you turned eighteen.
I love how this book was written, Curious One. It is like a handful of concepts all sewn together to create one, cohesive idea that just simply works. There was so much going on and I wish I had the other two novels so I could continue in this world and learn all the secrets.
Introuducing Della
Alright, so Gathering Water is about Della. She is a normal young woman who just turned eighteen and has finally aged out of the foster care system. She is responsible, caring and has a plan for her future. It’s a basic plan, but it is the best she can do at this time, so it is perfect. She also finally got homed with an older woman who doesn’t have other children to torment or abuse her. She goes to a final meeting her case worker and that was when it all changed.
Della has family, a house and some money left behind by her grandmother and mother – it all goes down the line of eldest daughters in her family, including the last name Deare. After some slight anger toward the family and some refusal to claim what is hers, she really thinks about it and decides to go claim her heritage. After all, she doesn’t actually have to meet any of the family; she can just claim what’s hers, look into the house and go from there.
When she gets there though, her plans unravel and change. She meets her family, realized they never knew she existed and if they had she would have been brought home and raised by the family. Her house is in a bit of disrepair, so she stays with an Uncle, Aunt and cousin and begins to learn new things about herself, her mother and her family.
Gathering Water Gathers My Attention
This is about the time it gets really interesting. My curiosity took hold and I finished the book in 2 sittings. Della meets a few new people, learns some valuable information from a journal written by her great grandmother and she moves in with her uncle until her house is done being fixed.
It is revealed that she can take the energy around her from the different elements and use them to improve different things (like her strength, stamina, eyesight, healing, etc). She had no idea she was capable of doing it even though she had been doing it a little bit her whole life. Della is unique though, in that her storage of the energy is vastly greater than anyone else and her natural ability and instinctual skill is extraordinary. She begins training with her family and improving more and more, even teaching them a few things.
She gets attacked though, by a member of the bad guys and she gets a new history lesson. This is where you are introduced to the ‘good guys’ and the ‘bad guys’ and what the purpose of the family is. They protect the human race and the world. So it’s a big deal. Anyways, she gets attacked by the bad guy (which is unique because there hasn’t been an attack for centuries), gets healed by a friend, and then has to go through a challenge of sorts. The challenge is to prove that the family leaders are strong and will be capable of defending the world if a war comes to fruition.
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Who, or What, Is Your Father?
The result of the challenge is for her to come back with her father. However, no one knows who her father is; or what her father is. They suspect it is a member of the bad guys and that is where all her unique abilities come from. However, like any good first book in a series, it ends on a cliff-hanger. She finds out that her father is one of the three leaders from the good guy clan. Della just met him and he didn’t tell her who he was… dun, duuun, dunnnnnn…
Then the book finishes off with a missing page from the journal I mentioned earlier. Her great grandmother had a vision of a young girl harnessing all the elements with dead bodies at her feet. The bad thing is that you can’t tell if she is on the ‘good’ side or the ‘bad’ side.
And there you have it!
Left Me Wanting More!
Hahahah! So, all in all, it was a very good book. I would have liked a bit more length to it, but it was the first book in a trilogy, so maybe the next two books are longer and spend more time going over some of the events that led to their current situation. Like, why did her mom run away? Would the good guys or her family have killed Della when she was a baby if they had known her father wasn’t a human? Why did the grandfather keep her a secret and ignore her existence – was it out of love and protection or fear and anger? What could cause Della to turn ‘bad’ and betray her new family? And what exactly does it mean that she can harness the energy of the spirit element too? I am so curious about this series! I want more!
I also enjoyed that you could tell who she will most likely end up loving and starting a relationship with, but it wasn’t focused solely on their blooming romance. It was like the author wanted you to know that they were a good fit, but this moment in her life isn’t about boys and love and drama; it’s about finding herself and realizing that family is powerful and that familial love is a really strong bond. I think it is important to think about that here, because of her upbringing. The foster care system can be brutal and it’s more important for her to make the familial bonds and ties than it is a romantic tie – yet the importance of romantic bonds is still a valid option and desire. I just think that the author did an exceptional job with that line of the story. It made more sense than Della jumping into a relationship with a boy because “it felt right. There is just something about you…” You know…the stereotypical budding romantic relationship lines that YA books tend to focus on.
Super Refreshing
I am also curious about the human factor here. So, the family she is from and the other families in the area are all involved in this energy harness capability. But, what about the other humans? You know, the ones that don’t believe in ‘magic’? The ones that they are protecting? I mean, Della got attacked and almost killed in the middle of a beach! What happens if a non-knowing human witnesses that? It’s kind of a unique viewpoint. They storyline made it seem like having this energy harness ability was pretty normal and that many families had the genes to do it. I kind of got the vibe that the whole town knew about it and was pretty blasé about the whole thing. But then, Della, coming from California, didn’t know anything about it.
So, it’s not a world where it’s common knowledge for people to have ‘magic powers’ but it’s common enough in their town that they can practice in remote, yet public places – or a hardware store in the middle of the day? You know what I mean? It makes you curious, I bet. I know I am.
It also felt like the family treated her pretty normally too. Like, they were pissed that she was kept from them, sad about her mother’s death and confused as to how it all worked out and how she got through her whole life not knowing about the energy. It felt realistic. I mean, you know how some books you are reading and there is a big reveal and the reaction to the reveal is astronomically over reactive? This book didn’t really have that. Della is 18 so she is a young adult. She is out of High School, a hard worker, confident and independent. But she is young enough that she still have emotion outbursts, but they aren’t the equivalent of a two year old not getting a candy bar. She has a moment and is able to move on. Gathering Water did very well reflecting that bridge to maturity.
The other characters as well. Her uncle Luke in the beginning knew she wanted nothing to do with family, so it would have been a bad move to reveal to her he was her uncle. So he didn’t hide it from her, but he knew she needed time. When it was revealed to her that he was actually her uncle, it was like “how could you have hidden that from me? Why?” And then they both discussed it and moved on with their relationship. It wasn’t dwelled over for two and a half chapters before they got back on good terms with each other. It was like a page. Super refreshing.
Last Thoughts on Gathering Water
In all honesty, I will reread Gathering Water. It was very well written and easy to follow with an amazing storyline where the plot kept getting thicker and thicker. It’s a series I’ll have to keep an eye on and hopefully I can invest in the final books so I can satiate my curiosity and I’m not left hanging like this! I loved it. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Gathering Water is definitely on my watch list now.
Hopefully you already have another book, Curious One, because it’s the perfect time of year to grab a cool drink, relax under a shade tree and enter a new world.
I don’t know about you, but it’s time for another book…
Check out Regan Claire at the following links:
Regan Claire’s Website
Regan Claire’s Facebook Page
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If you enjoyed this discussion, check out some other discussions in the Fantasy, Suspense/Thriller, and Other pages! Make sure to check out the Time for a Notebook as well for notes on things book related! Thanks!!
