A young girl raised by her distant father to be a warrior and kill his enemies. To live without emotions, no fear, and no attachments. She is his blade, his witch, and he treats her with disdain. She kills, never questioning him until she wipes out one village of people that have similar markings as her own. She starts asking questions about her dead mother's people and why she has to kill them. More questions are raised when one of the village shows himself to her and she doesn't turn him in to her father. The truths she learns are going to change everything for her future.
it is an adventurous tale of greed, power and total control. The witches of this world have wonderful elemental powers and I can't wait to meet more in the next book. The villains are evil and nasty, just the way I like them.
I got this as a Kindle freebie and sadly I didn't expect much from it. I've had some pretty bad luck with many of them. They are reviewed well but when read them I don't see it.
This book broke the pattern, it was well written with a well built world and characters. I did not want to put it down. It had a new and fresh plot not following in the footpaths of the mainstream books out today. ( )

At first this book wasn't doing anything for me but it did get better then it just ended on a cliffhanger. I have a strong impression, after looking at the Amazon page for the next book in this 4 book series, that the whole thing is just one long story arbitrarily divided into four parts without any real resolution until the last one. While I had the vague intention to track them down some day, now after a few days, with the story fading from mind, that intention is almost non-existent. There are just too many books out there that I would rather spend my time with.

Thea Atkinson’s Water Witch is an adventure in magical creativity. The story’s base places the reader in the midst of a world overrun by power hungry leaders and supernatural conquests. Delight envelops the reader as each moves further into the Alaysha’s world where ruling powers will do anything to control her and her powers.

The plot is well developed and interesting, holding the reader’s interest with no effort. Atkinson has created a new spin on the standard hero’s quest, rich with vibrant landscape and characters. Readers are caught in the middle of warring factions with Alaysha, whose solitude goes deeper than anyone dares to imagine.

Alaysha, the title character, is strong willed, beautiful, and powerful; but has no idea how much power she truly wields; of course, neither does anyone else. The other characters, most of them male, are just as vivid and well written. Most of the other female characters in the novel are young and all but powerless. It seems that the young and powerless characters reflect Alaysha’s feelings of being powerless to control her own life, or her powers.
I enjoyed each page of this tale, until the end. While I know the author has obviously left room for the sequel novels, I found the endpoint chosen to be off-kilter. It may be my aversion to Hitchcockesque endings, where one is left with more questions than answers, but the simple truth is- I wanted more, and not to have to wait for more. But then, I guess that’s what all authors wish to see in their readers, isn’t it. ( )