All of this to say, I am fully on board Whitten’s train, and I was super excited when I saw that she was releasing a new book this spring that would be the first in a new series. The romance in “The Foxglove King” is more than just a simple love story — it’s a complicated affair that adds a layer of tension to the plot.

Michal was sitting up when Lore pushed aside the ratty curtain closing off their room, sheets tangled around his waist and dripping off the mattress to pool on the floor.The Foxglove King is a decadent and deadly feast of a novel, brimming with romance, intrigue, and twisted magic' C. Whatever Pierre had been after when he visited a deathdealer this morning, he hadn’t paid enough to get it.

Not exactly true, since she hadn’t noticed until she’d sensed the Mortem, but by the time he could examine himself, the effect would’ve worn off anyway. Lore poured all of it into the stained cloth she used as a strainer and balled it in her fingers as she put the kettle over the fire. Anyone can take one look at you and know, Pierre, even though your deathdealer barely gave you enough to make you tingle. If you are a fan of the central love triangle in the Shadow and Bone series (note: I am basing this off the TV show version and not the book, although I am told they are fairly similar) you’ll love what Whitten does here. Michal left, that same step squeaking on his way down, the windows rattling when he closed the door.

The plot moves swiftly so a lot of the times you don’t even notice how shallow the characters actually are. The author takes the time to describe the culture and customs of the city's inhabitants, from the elites’ elaborate clothing to the gritty underworld of the poison runners.

Mortem was dormant in everyone—the essence of death, the power born of entropy, just waiting to flood your body on the day it failed—but the only way to use it, to bend it to your will, was to nearly die. It had the look of a construction that had been many things in its time, so many that they’d all canceled one another out, so now it was nearly featureless. Essentially, people who experience a near death experience (or who do die and are resuscitated) have the ability to control Mortem, or the power of death. The Four Wards at ordinal directions, the western two coming up against the sea while the eastern led to Auverraine’s rolling farmland. It is clear that Whitten has thought about how her magic system would impact people’s behaviors and actions.So I guess you could say that during the day I like to escape into the past and in the evening I like to escape into other worlds! Rating 8: Like the book’s own magic, Whitten perfectly balances darkness and light to create a new fantasy world and leading lady that feels both dangerous and opulent, ferocious and soft.

Mortem wasn’t as thick here on the outskirts of Dellaire as it was closer to the Citadel—closer to the Buried Goddess’s body far beneath it, leaking the magic of death—but it was still enough to make her skin crawl. But it’s also clearly the start to a series, so both of these questions could be resolved in follow-up books. It’s going to take all of Lore’s cunning and skill to survive the court and uncover the mystery behind the attacks. The Foxglove King is a decadent and deadly feast of a novel, brimming with romance, intrigue, and twisted magic’C.Not that the life you got in exchange was one of great quality—half-stone, your veins clotted with rock, making your blood rub through them like a cobblestone skinning a knee. Like with Whitten’s previous protagonists, Lore is a character that is easy to root for and is a strong female character without being a “strong female character”.