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bluejayreads's review against another edition
4.0
I took a long time to get through this book, but it wasn’t the book’s fault. I got about halfway through it and then got in a reading slump where I didn’t feel like reading anything – even though I really enjoyed the first half of this book. But eventually I got over the slump and kept going, and of course I finished this book because there’s so much to love.
If you’ve been following this blog for more than a month or two, you probably already know that two of my favorite things for books to have are absurdly powerful protagonists and weird, creepy, and/or otherwise unique religions, the more fanatical the followers the better. So you will not be surprised to find a large part of what I liked about this book is that it has both of them.
I’m going to start by talking about the religion, because it’s foundational to the world and the magic system that our protagonist uses. First off, there is only one god, the god of light and life – because the rest of the pantheon is dead. The rotting corpse of the goddess of death and darkness, murdered by the god of light some centuries past, is buried underneath the city. Magic spills from the corpses of dead gods, which means the city is full of death magic, called Mortem – although not as much as you would expect, because an order of monks given the ability to interact with Mortem by virtue of a near-death experience are in charge of channeling it into stones and plants and otherwise keeping it from killing people. Which, despite the the fact that all of the names for people and magical forces and everything are terrible in this book, is a fantastic premise. “The gods were real and now they’re dead but their power isn’t” is one of my absolutely favorite fictional religion concepts. “Dead goddess’s corpse buried under the city” is a FANTASTIC premise. I love it.
And then we come to our protagonist Lore, who is not only the most powerful Mortem-wieldier since the necromancers were murdered, but was born with this ability for reasons that don’t get explained until the end but definitely involve our dead goddess. She grew up in a smuggler gang helping her moms move illegal drugs around the city, so she’s scrappy and fierce. But she’s actually not all that great at hand-to-hand combat and doesn’t fall into plucky YA heroine tropes. (Despite Lore being twenty-three, this whole book has a distinctly older-end-of-YA vibe.) She’s clever and fierce and powerful, but she’s also determined to survive and generally makes smart choices, which I really appreciate.
This book also gets an award for having the only love triangle I have ever read that I didn’t loathe. I actually kind of liked it. Lore is attracted to the generally kind, highly loyal, fiercely religious young monk who is assigned to both protect her and keep her from escaping while she navigates the court. She’s also attracted to the incredibly handsome bad boy Prince Bastian, who is powerful in his own way and maybe not as bad as everyone keeps telling her. There was a bit of triangle-ing and confusing pining, but I think there were really two things that kept me from hating it. One is that both guys seemed like reasonable choices, for different reasons – I didn’t feel like one was the obvious good choice and the triangle was just unnecessary complication. The other reason is that Lore refused to let the romance be any more than a background element. She is far too practical to let something silly like two hot guys distract her from what’s really important: Stopping the serial mass murder going on, unraveling the complicated plot of theoretical magic and court politics that may or may not be causing the serial mass murder, and most of all staying alive. Lore did have real human emotions and romantic feelings, but she was also relentlessly pragmatic and set on her own self-preservation, which I really loved about her.
The characters were solid, the story was delightfully twisty, the magic and religion were amazing, and the conspiracy, like a good conspiracy, turned out to be much darker and much wider-reaching than I anticipated. The only thing I didn’t actually like was the ending. It seemed far too straightforward after how complex and layered the rest of the book had been, and felt very anticlimactic. The love triangle didn’t even shake out very well because Lore did make a choice, sort of, but the nuanced relationships she had built with both men seemed to entirely vanish after the climax. Despite how much they had all been through together, they seemed cold and distant, like they were back to being total strangers again. On the whole, it felt unsatisfying.
A somewhat unsatisfying ending doesn’t negate how much I enjoyed the rest of the book, though. World, plot, characters, setting, religion, atmosphere, romance, character dynamics – up until the climax and resolution, they were all fantastic. It’s dark, it’s twisty, there’s a love triangle I didn’t hate, it’s got a dead goddess and creepy monks and creepier nuns and a massive conspiracy, and on the whole, it’s a very good book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Body horror, Gore, Death, Injury/Injury detail, and Animal death
Moderate: Child abuse, Confinement, and Emotional abuse
Minor: Terminal illness, Death of parent, Religious bigotry, Vomit, and Child death
Betrayal, religious abuse, child neglect (mentions)dani_reis's review against another edition
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gore, and Drug use
Moderate: Animal death
The animal death is one event very early on. With the story being about necromancy, you can anticipate how that goes. There is multiple mentions of the animal throughout.krisalexcole's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug abuse, Drug use, and Death
Moderate: Death of parent, War, Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Gore, Kidnapping, Animal death, Alcohol, Child death, and Vomit
Minor: Sexual content, Confinement, Cursing, Panic attacks/disorders, Forced institutionalization, Chronic illness, Fire/Fire injury, Pregnancy, and Suicidal thoughts
theespressoedition's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Child death, Blood, Murder, Animal death, and Gore
Moderate: Cursing, Violence, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, War, Vomit, and Torture
Minor: Sexual content
beccaand's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Animal death, Addiction, and Death
Moderate: Religious bigotry, Gore, Blood, and Child death
Minor: War and Death of parent
rusereviews's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
3.5
The Foxglove King by Hannah Whitten is a fantasy romance featuring religion and court politics and the first installment in The Nightshade Crown series.
Lore escaped a cult hiding in the catacombs beneath the city of Dellaire when she was thirteen. Now twenty-three, she works as a spy for a poison-runner as her death magic (Mortem) ties her to the city. When one of her jobs goes wrong she is taken prisoner by the only people sanctioned to use Mortem--a group of warrior-monks. Expecting to be killed for her magic, she is instead conscripted by the king to find out the mystery behind random entire cities dying overnight.
This book is tagged as YA, but it's more New Adult. The first 30% is mostly vibes and some info dumps, and though the worldbuilding isn't very deep it seemed cool so I was interested. And then I accidentally stayed up until 5 am reading the last 70% of the book.
There's casual queerness here that I quite liked. Our main character was raised by a lesbian couple, many characters appear to be sexually fluid, and one of the gods in the pantheon is nonbinary and is referenced with they/them pronouns.
I particularly enjoyed the magic system here that seems to be the duality between Mortem, death magic, and Spiritum, life magic.
The descriptions we got about the pantheon of gods was interesting as well. I grew up Lutheran, but I've heard some complaints from folks who are Catholic noting that Whitten's religion here is very stereotypical.
The love triangle didn't fully land for me, and there feels like a bit of a "fated mates" scenario happening here which is always weird to me unless I'm reading about shifters.
There is a scene with animal death, and though that is one of my biggest triggers, I understand why it was written into the story and it wasn't ham-fisted or done for no reason.
All in all, I do plan to read the next book in the series.
CW: gore, violence, cults, death of a child (off-page, the body is on-page), parental abuse (emotional, physical), religious abuse, animal death, brief mentions of vomit
I received a copy of this book to review. All opinions contained herein are my own.
Lore escaped a cult hiding in the catacombs beneath the city of Dellaire when she was thirteen. Now twenty-three, she works as a spy for a poison-runner as her death magic (Mortem) ties her to the city. When one of her jobs goes wrong she is taken prisoner by the only people sanctioned to use Mortem--a group of warrior-monks. Expecting to be killed for her magic, she is instead conscripted by the king to find out the mystery behind random entire cities dying overnight.
This book is tagged as YA, but it's more New Adult. The first 30% is mostly vibes and some info dumps, and though the worldbuilding isn't very deep it seemed cool so I was interested. And then I accidentally stayed up until 5 am reading the last 70% of the book.
There's casual queerness here that I quite liked. Our main character was raised by a lesbian couple, many characters appear to be sexually fluid, and one of the gods in the pantheon is nonbinary and is referenced with they/them pronouns.
I particularly enjoyed the magic system here that seems to be the duality between Mortem, death magic, and Spiritum, life magic.
The descriptions we got about the pantheon of gods was interesting as well. I grew up Lutheran, but I've heard some complaints from folks who are Catholic noting that Whitten's religion here is very stereotypical.
The love triangle didn't fully land for me, and there feels like a bit of a "fated mates" scenario happening here which is always weird to me unless I'm reading about shifters.
There is a scene with animal death, and though that is one of my biggest triggers, I understand why it was written into the story and it wasn't ham-fisted or done for no reason.
All in all, I do plan to read the next book in the series.
CW: gore, violence, cults, death of a child (off-page, the body is on-page), parental abuse (emotional, physical), religious abuse, animal death, brief mentions of vomit
I received a copy of this book to review. All opinions contained herein are my own.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence and Gore
Moderate: Death, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Child death, Animal death, and Religious bigotry
Minor: Vomit
sarahamuller1's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gore, Child death, and Addiction
Moderate: Blood and Injury/Injury detail
soniajoy98's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Body horror, Death, Drug abuse, Gore, Murder, Animal death, Child death, and Violence
Moderate: Classism, War, Blood, Drug use, Religious bigotry, Terminal illness, Abandonment, and Alcohol
Minor: Fire/Fire injury, Death of parent, Sexual content, and Vomit
sophs_mood_reading's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.5
This book should have been a winner for me. It had the medieval royalty theme, magical powers, a love triangle, strong female lead, some YA romance and some mysterious twists and “who’s the bad guy” plot themes.
However, it was the longest 400 page book I’ve ever read.
The reason; the over done descriptions and much to long scenes. It was as if the author couldn’t trust the reader to “pick up what she was putting down” and literally had to write out every single detail of every scene until there was nothing left to the imagination.
This resulted in useless unimportant moments of the book going for multiple pages or chapters. Such as the first scene in the book so detailed about the relationship of her lovers sister and her and yet we never ever see her again! A simple, she hates me would have sufficed.
It’s so annoying because the plot of the book without all the padded out detail was great. However I feel we missed out on some really much needed plot details as we were to busy getting descriptions of every muscle movement in someone’s face and what that would then translate into meaning.
I got to the end an thought, damn it I want to know what happens next but I don’t know if I have the strength to read another book in the series.
So if they make a cliff’s notes. Please let me know!
However, it was the longest 400 page book I’ve ever read.
The reason; the over done descriptions and much to long scenes. It was as if the author couldn’t trust the reader to “pick up what she was putting down” and literally had to write out every single detail of every scene until there was nothing left to the imagination.
This resulted in useless unimportant moments of the book going for multiple pages or chapters. Such as the first scene in the book so detailed about the relationship of her lovers sister and her and yet we never ever see her again! A simple, she hates me would have sufficed.
It’s so annoying because the plot of the book without all the padded out detail was great. However I feel we missed out on some really much needed plot details as we were to busy getting descriptions of every muscle movement in someone’s face and what that would then translate into meaning.
I got to the end an thought, damn it I want to know what happens next but I don’t know if I have the strength to read another book in the series.
So if they make a cliff’s notes. Please let me know!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Violence, and Gore
Moderate: Child death, Violence, and Animal death
Minor: Death of parent and Abandonment
aliteraryescape's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Minor: Gore and Blood