Book Review: Gathering Water by Regan Claire

I've just got back to reading ebooks recently - and reading as a whole - with Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie, so I thought I'd check out my e-bookshelves to see what I still hadn't read (...it's a lot), and found this book, which I was excited to read. 

Gathering Water by Regan Claire is a YA fantasy novel (not quite urban fantasy, but beachside fantasy, perhaps?) that follows the story of foster child Della as she learns the truth about who her mother was, and uncovers family secrets that will change her life forever.

The Goodreads blurb:

"Knowledge really is power when you don't know who you are." - Jane Doe. 

It was all Della ever knew of her mother. No identification. No family to tie her to. Then, on her eighteenth birthday, Della's life was flipped upside down by one thin, manila folder. Growing up in the foster system, she never really had anything to call her own, not even a last name revealing any real association to anyone. Now, the truth was exposed, but there was still so much she didn't know. 

Hoping to learn more about the mother she never knew, and maybe discover a bit more about herself along the way, Della travels across the country seeking answers-and finds far more than she bargained for. 

An unimaginable world-one on the brink of war-is pulling her in, and making her claim a birthright she never knew she wanted. There's a storm brewing on the horizon, and as the pressure builds, it will take everything Della has not to drown in a destiny she didn't choose.

 

The triquetra symbol, which seems to play a role in the story.
This book doesn't seem to explain clearly what the significance of it is yet.

My review:

Overall the story was an enjoyable read, with a fun and  interesting set of characters and a pretty cool premise. At the heart of the book is the theme of family and trust, and I really appreciated the focus on these two subjects.

I really enjoyed the family mystery, and though it was a bit easy to guess who was who (as in, who the people in the diary were, what probably happened between them, who Della's father is, why nobody came to get her all those years ago, etc.), it didn't stop me from reading on. But what I liked most was how realistic the main character felt. I truly enjoyed Della's childish banter with Cash, and her internal monologue did a great job explaining why she reacted to certain things in a particular way. The system that the characters' powers works on - the whole way that they prepare and train and use their powers - was also pretty cool.

I would have liked to know more about the symbol that seems to be important to the story - the one on the cover of the book and that presents itself at least once or twice in the book - but I went ahead and looked it up (thank you, Wikipedia!), and found out that in fact the triquetra with the circle, as seen above, a Christian Trinitarian symbol (what's more commonly referred to as a "Trinity knot"). However, taking it from a pagan Celtic perspective (and I hope I'm getting this right), it refers to the three stages of a woman's life and is related to the phases of the moon. I can kind of see a small connection - in that Della's family passes things down through the women in the family rather than the men - and the moon itself seems to be an interesting symbol in connection, though I can't put my finger on why that is, exactly.

Also, I felt it ended a bit too soon! I wanted more! (And I guess that's a good thing!) I still had a lot of unanswered questions at the end of the book, despite having had several questions already answered (such as, who are Della's mother and father, and by extension, who is her family? - which seemed to be the main question the book sought to answer, and I felt it definitely did that). It seemed like lot of this book was setting up for the rest of the series, which I have a hunch will have much more action and romance. 

You can also find this review on Goodreads.