OFFICIAL AUTHOR BIO: Hannah Whitten has been writing to amuse herself since she could hold a pen, and sometime in high school, figured out that what amused her might also amuse others. When she’s not writing, she’s reading, making music, or attempting to bake. She lives in an old farmhouse in Tennessee with her husband, children, two cats, a dog, and probably some ghosts.

FORMAT/INFO: The Foxglove King will be published by Orbit Books on March 7th, 2023. It is 480 pages split over 41 chapters and an epilogue. It is told in third person from Lore's POV. It will be available in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook formats.

OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: Ever since she was a child, Lore has been able to use the forbidden magic of Mortem, the essence of death. When she's finally caught using her power, Lore expects a swift execution, but instead she's hauled before the king himself and given two tasks: determine why nearby villages are suddenly dying out overnight, and determine if the Sun Prince is involved. Failure to do either will result in the completion of her delayed execution. Lore now has to figure out how to use the magic she's denied herself for so long and plunge headlong into court life to accomplish her goals. She's not here to make friends - but if she's going to discover the kingdom's secrets, she's going to have to get dangerously close to her targets.

The Foxglove King is an intriguing mythological mystery that stumbles a bit when it comes to romance. As with her previous books, the author does a wonderful job of describing the magic that Lore wields. I loved the way her vision goes grey scale to highlight the relative distribution of death in a room, and the tendrils she controls to channel her ability. The mythology of the world, with its fallen gods and past betrayals, hooked me, and I constantly wanted to know more about the ancient stories and the relative truth of what the Church circulated as fact.

Where I struggled much more was with the romance elements of the books. Individually, I liked the characters of Lore, Gabe (a monk of the Church charged with watching Lore) and Bastian (the Sun Prince that Lore is spying on). They were well written and I could understand their flaws, finding them sympathetic and charming in turn. There were parts of Gabe's struggles in particular that I found very compelling. The problem was, none of them really had chemistry together. Love triangles don't bother me if done well. They DO bother me when characters just become bickering, sniping, jealous people as a result of being in said love triangle, especially when there are larger stakes at play in the moment.

As a result, I struggled in the back half of the book as characters began to frustrate me. On the one hand, I could see why they were behaving the way they were; quite a bit of their actions made sense. But just because it made sense doesn't mean I enjoyed watching it, which was where the frustration came in, especially compounded by one or two relationship moments that did NOT make sense to me. As a result, a book that had started out strong really faltered as it crossed the finish line.

CONCLUSION: The Foxglove King is a bit of a mixed bag that makes it hard to unreservedly recommend it. Again, there are a lot of promising ideas, and I want to know more about some elements that were teased as future mysteries to unravel. I was really ready to love this one and initially thought I would give it a more enthusiastic review. Unfortunately, this is a book that has a strong romance component that I was just not that interested in. It just missed the mark of being a new favorite, though others with a higher tolerance of love triangles might want to give this one a look.