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A review by lylah
The King's Witch by Tracy Borman
3.0
You can tell that Borman is a historian in her writing—she vividly brings detail to the front and really makes you feel like you’re actually there in that moment, smelling Frances’s herbs and visualizing the dresses and castles and the decadence of the court. This is the best thing about the novel and definitely where it shines, and even when it was too slow or not well-developed I reveled in these descriptions.
I think that some of historical fiction can be very limiting when all the characters are real figures, as they are in this book. When you figure out the protagonists are embroiled in the gunpowder plot, even with a very small knowledge of English history, you would be able to tell they’re going to fail and most of them will die. Borman embellishes this history very little with extra detail, relying on historical accuracy over making the plot interesting. She does not do anything original with it, which would be fine if her characters were not dull. I did not care about any of the characters in this book, and I especially did not care for the main romance, but I think it may have been a flaw to choose a main character who sits on the sidelines to all the interesting aspects of this moment in time — we get to see her tried as a witch for about a chapter, and then everything else we have to hear through messengers days after it happened. It was anticlimactic.
I had a few issues with the writing, which was mostly good but dabbled a lot in cliches (if anyone else’s eyes had blazed I was probably going to put it down after the 10th or 11th time). It also seemed like if there was nothing else going on in the plot Borman would just make someone fall ill suddenly and Frances would have to come to the rescue.
Overall, this book was too long, and not very captivating in terms of plot or character, but I did enjoy it as a kind of “period piece.” It’s decent for a fiction debut. I won’t be reading the other books in this series because I’m just not interested but I would definitely return to Borman again after she has more fiction under her belt.
I think that some of historical fiction can be very limiting when all the characters are real figures, as they are in this book. When you figure out the protagonists are embroiled in the gunpowder plot, even with a very small knowledge of English history, you would be able to tell they’re going to fail and most of them will die. Borman embellishes this history very little with extra detail, relying on historical accuracy over making the plot interesting. She does not do anything original with it, which would be fine if her characters were not dull. I did not care about any of the characters in this book, and I especially did not care for the main romance, but I think it may have been a flaw to choose a main character who sits on the sidelines to all the interesting aspects of this moment in time — we get to see her tried as a witch for about a chapter, and then everything else we have to hear through messengers days after it happened. It was anticlimactic.
I had a few issues with the writing, which was mostly good but dabbled a lot in cliches (if anyone else’s eyes had blazed I was probably going to put it down after the 10th or 11th time). It also seemed like if there was nothing else going on in the plot Borman would just make someone fall ill suddenly and Frances would have to come to the rescue.
Overall, this book was too long, and not very captivating in terms of plot or character, but I did enjoy it as a kind of “period piece.” It’s decent for a fiction debut. I won’t be reading the other books in this series because I’m just not interested but I would definitely return to Borman again after she has more fiction under her belt.