RogerBW's Blog

Wooing the Witch Queen, Stephanie Burgis 09 July 2025

2025 romantic fantasy, first of a new series. Felix is the young, widowed Archduke, cowed by his family and waiting to be murdered in the pursuit of power, until he suddenly realises that there's nobody left that he cares about to be hurt if he runs away. Meanwhile, the villainous Queen Saskia seems to have the one kingdom where his family can't reach him…

I've started a couple of books recently that I haven't yet finished because of a lack of enthusiasm, but this one pulled me in straight away. Felix has been abused since childhood and never been allowed to reach a position where he might learn about governance or assert his own power; Saskia saw her parents murdered by her usurping uncle, then took back the kingdom with sorcery, but now has to juggle its defences and her unreliable allies when she'd really rather spend time developing new magics. Each of them, but Saskia in particular, has to keep up a façade of power and confidence, but never too much

When Felix shows up, planning to announce his identity and throw himself on her mercy, she immediately drags him into the job she most needs done, being the Dark Wizard who can organise her library. As time goes on and Felix realises just how much the Archduke is her primary foe (or at least the things done in the Archduke's name) he decides to keep up the pretence. After all, he may not be a Dark Wizard, but he does know books. And slowly sparks begin to fly…

A fair bit of modern fiction tries to have just the "good bits", the emotional payoffs that for me only have real weight if they're preceded by reasons to care about them. (In other words, "save the cat"; get me to think of your protagonist as a good person whom I want to see succeed, before you ask me to cheer for their success.) But here Burgis nails something rather harder: we come to appreciate the protagonists' past suffering without the long passages of unpleasantness that are for me the other way this trick can fail, and both our protagonists are grown-up enough that even when the Big Revelation of Felix's identity hits it's a matter of taking a bit of time to think things over rather than making irrevocable decisions on the spur of the moment.

This is the first book of a planned trilogy, and the setup for the second one is obvious, both in establishing the lead couple and in arranging some of the major events. But as a side effect, it's pleasing to see that not everything comes instantly right the moment the leads agree that they love each other: not only are there things to be resolved within this book, but at the end there are still real problems for them to face, and they will face them together.

Unless I read many truly amazing things between now and December, this will be one of my books of the year.

[Buy this at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

Add A Comment

Your Name
Your Email
Your Comment

Note that I will only approve comments that relate to the blog post itself, not ones that relate only to previous comments. This is to ensure that the blog remains outside the scope of the UK's Online Safety Act (2023).

Your submission will be ignored if any field is left blank, but your email address will not be displayed. Comments will be processed through markdown.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 2300ad 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech base commerce battletech bayern beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime crystal cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter disaster doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 essen 2024 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror horrorm science fiction hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2021 hugo 2022 hugo 2023 hugo 2024 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow openscad opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast poetry politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant review reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 typst vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1