Well this was just delightful. Wooing the Witch Queen revolves around one of my least favorite tropes: The Big Misunderstanding. And yet, it is a delight from beginning to end, with a minimum amount of stupidity and wonderful characters.
Here’s the publisher’s description of the plot:
Queen Saskia is the wicked sorceress everyone fears. After successfully wrestling the throne from her evil uncle, she only wants one thing: to keep her people safe from the empire next door. For that, she needs to spend more time in her laboratory experimenting with her spells. She definitely doesn’t have time to bring order to her chaotic library of magic.
When a mysterious dark wizard arrives at her castle, Saskia hires him as her new librarian on the spot. “Fabian” is sweet and a little nerdy, and his requests seem a little strange – what in the name of Divine Elva is a fountain pen? – but he’s getting the job done. And if he writes her flirtatious poetry and his innocent touch makes her skin singe, well…
Little does Saskia know that the “wizard” she’s falling for is actually an Imperial archduke in disguise, with no magical training whatsoever. On the run, with perilous secrets on his trail and a fast growing yearning for the wicked sorceress, he’s in danger from her enemies and her newfound allies, too. When his identity is finally revealed, will their love save or doom each other?
This book includes: a cozy kitchen with a bossy cook who makes sure everyone eats, three witch queens – all of whom wear simply amazing outfits, a crow friend, a crow army, gryphons, poetry, a castle, a library, and a ballroom. And tea, lots of tea. Also magic and politics. Although the vibe is a cozy one, characters deal with serious issues so TW for discussion of child abuse, murder, and PTSD.
Let’s see if I can sum up the political situation here. It seems that Felix should be the ruler of the Serafin Empire. However, his now father-in-law, Count Gerhard von Hertzendorff, had served as regent for years and had subjected Felix to horrendous mental, emotional, and physical abuse since childhood. Meanwhile the Serafin Empire has been trying to take over Saskia’s kingdom, Kitvaria, and finally gives up, believing that there is no defeating the Witch Queen’s spells.
Felix (who is now a widower) takes advantage of this truce to flee to Kitvaria, hoping to throw himself on Saskia’s mercy. She mistakes him for a sorcerer and puts him in charge of organizing her library, which is large. So he wafts around the castle in a half-mask and black robes, and spends so much time pretending to be powerful and confident that he actually becomes so.
Meanwhile, Saskia is beset by the demands of her two fellow witch queens, whose kingdoms are allied with hers. She is also beset by the demands of Mirjana, her ex-lover and First Minister, who wants Saskia to change her image from Wicked Witch to Respectable Ruler. Emperor Otto in the Kingdom of Fiora is clearly about to invade at any minute, and there’s no telling how long the truce with the Derafin Empire will last. All she wants to do is work in her laboratory, so you can imagine that all this is very stressful and irritating for her. Yet whenever she enters the library and ‘Sinestro’ is present, she feels a sense of calm and confidence. And also a sense of lust, because even with a half-mask ‘Sinestro’ is clearly hot.
I have to confess to you that I could only explain all this by going back and re-reading parts of the opening chapters, because my experience of reading the book went like this:
Opera!
Burning skulls = nice decor
Misunderstanding, ugh
Ooooh! Library!
Argument about pens is weirdly hot
Crow!
Politics blahhhh blahhhh what is everyone wearing
Romance, romance, romance
tea, pastries, yummy
romance
IDK something is happening I guess
sex
last minute crisis
who are all these people
I guess everything worked out, yay
HEA + sequel bait.
I really, really, really loved our hero of many names (Felix/Sinestro/Fabian) and Saskia. I loved how they treated each other. I loved how they stood up for each other. I loved how they protected and cared for each other emotionally and physically. They express interest in each other’s interests and needs. They champion each other’s best qualities. They are funny together and have intense chemistry (although their one sex scene is not very explicit). I especially appreciated that:
Show Spoiler
When ‘Fabian’ finally reveals himself to be Felix to Saskia, she gets over it remarkably quickly given the magnitude of this revelation. They trust each other so much by that point that a little thing like the disclosure of an entirely manufactured identity is barely a hiccup in their relationship.
This isn’t the most well-constructed book. The political situation is all over the place. My cynical heart is quite convinced that in real life the book would have ended in a blood-bath. The world-building is minimal. The sequel bait is so obvious it might as well say TO BE CONTINUED, THIS TIME WITH KINK! in neon letters. All important themes of the book are all so obviously explained that they might as well be written in capslock.
However, despite the aforementioned TW for discussions of abuse, this is a great comfort read. The secondary characters are delightful. The chemistry is magnetic. The villains are scummy. The pace is brisk. There’s a lot of attention paid to people taking care of other people – paid staff, but also friends, lovers, ex-lovers, sometimes fighting but always trying their best to help each other be their best selves. It’s a very gentle book. There are pastries, there is tea, there is a library in a castle, there is self-actualization. In these trying times, it’s incredibly comforting to read a book in which people have faith in other people and in which people are given the opportunity and tools they need to develop faith in themselves. I predict reading this many times in the years ahead.