I honestly love this book. I love the fae world, the explanation of how one becomes a witch, and the interactions between the two groups, who are different but the same. I love our MC's journey, his attempt to escape his past only to be brought right back into it. The love interest and side characters are lovely, and the villain?? I didn't see it coming! 5 stars for sure!!

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This was fun to read. I keep seeing this book pop up in my suggestions since it is exactly my genre. I enjoyed the journey.

Why should folks read this title? 1 awesome platonic relationship. 2 awesome transman rep. 3 super awesome found family.
The best part is that this is an own voices title.'

Our main character, Wyatt, was born in the faerie world of Asalin, where the fae rule and witches like him are looked down upon, outcast, and discriminated against. When he was young, he was bonded and betrothed to the faerie prince, Emyr, but he figured that marriage contract was null and void when he A) transitioned and was no longer the "woman biologically suited to carrying on the royal line" and B) lost control of his magic one devastating night before fleeing the faerie world once and for all. This is story is about Emyr finding Wyatt in the human word, determined to see through their betrothal, and bringing him back to Asalin to face his fate.

This tale takes location in the human world so the fae have had years to mingle with humans and undertake a number of their manners. This book has a completely juvenile tone and talk, which takes you out of the tale while you're reading about an antique country and that they mention the word racism and gender and nuggets within the equal paragraph. most of the younger characters expressed themselves much like we do which changed into also weirdly off setting. It felt like studying viral Tumblr posts one after the other. this mix of our world with the myth world wasn't my favored and the author is not subtle sufficient with the way they point out racism, homophobia, transphobia, and lots of other of our international's troubles. those subjects had been also referred to in any such superficial way, there was a looot of preaching and telling but no longer showing. I also felt bizarre while a nonbinary lesbian stated themselves as a theydy however it's now not my place to fall that one out.

The romance... Is nonexistent. The prince loves Wyatt and Wyatt loves the prince however Wyatt does not want to be a king so he treats him like shit throughout the e-book. that is truthful I wager because he iiiiiss trying to make him be somewhere he doesn't need to be. other than that, there may be like zero communique from them till abruptly Wyatt makes a decision he needs consolation from someone else after which growth, he wishes the prince.

What a amazing book! I feel in love with this one. The story is spectacular, all the characters are super vivid. I recommend with my heart.

late to this review but this was a wonderful diverse read. a breath of fresh air and lovely prose. felt like coming home to a world i’ve known

I thought the relationships in this were good, and the characters were fun and had unique voices, but the fae world and its worldbuilding fell so incredibly flat for me. That was a huge disappointment. I almost feel like the exact same story could be told in a contemporary setting and almost nothing would be lost.

I absolutely loved this, SO MUCH. Wyatt, Briar, and Emyr were amazing characters and I loved seeing the dynamics play out between the different relationships.

Wyatt is such a disaster and so angry (for good reasons) and I can't wait to see him work through that as the series goes on. The politics of the fae paralleling the events of our world was very well done, in my opinion.

I'm going to be highly recommending this to everyone.

The Witch King was phenomenal! The representation was perfect, the characters were so well written, and the world was allegorical without being preachy. It's everything I love in a fae book with the diversity that's been missing for a very long time.

I really enjoyed this. The world building was great and I liked the humour sprinkled throughout the story. There's tension and some action that kept me hooked.

I love Wyatt as the MC. He's snarky and has quite a bit of growth over the pages.

I'm looking forward to the next book to see where the story goes next.

...So when it comes to Halloween-type stories, I’m much more likely to pick something witchy than too scary, which is one of the reasons I loved the novel The Witch King by H. E. Edgmon (which I received from the publisher as an ARC). Wyatt Croft is a trans witch who never learned how to control his powerful magic. He only barely escaped the fae nation Asalin after a terrible fire he started (in self defense) destroys part of the capital. But despite his best attempts at starting over in the human world, making friends with the amazing Briar and being taken in by her family, Wyatt can’t evade his fate. He’s the betrothed of the prince of Asalin, Emyr, his childhood best friend, and Emyr has come to bring him back to Asalin to be part of the system Wyatt hates. The witch vs. fae storyline simmering here gives the whole world a tension that offsets how much of a teenage mess Wyatt is. (He’s seventeen, angry at the world, and grew up in an abusive family and culture—he has every right to be a mess.) His voice is quirky, funny, and self-centered—most of the time unrepentantly—but his growth throughout the novel paves the way for greater things in future series installments. While this one has several content warnings (provided by the author) that you may want to peek at before reading, I highly recommend it as a hopeful story of a teen figuring out what he really wants from life when the odds of getting to happiness, fueled by really cool magic, are set against him.

I wanted so badly to like this, but I just couldn't get into it. I blame that on the fact that I've been having a hard time reading fantasy novels lately. It's not that the book was bad, it's just that I couldn't get into it. I ended up DNF'ing around 45%. Will pick up again when I'm back in a fantasy mood.

I really enjoyed reading this, it didn't feel like the transgender characters was transgender just for the sake of it. They just felt like a real person. I had a lot of fun reading this book and thought it was a unique take on witches and supernatural.

This book is out of my normal reading comfort zone but I really enjoyed it. The story and the characters are captivating. The representation is refreshing in a fantasy world and I recommend it!

The Witch King held a lot of promise and even though it was a book that I was initially very interested to read, I found my interest dwindling very quickly. This also ended up becoming a DNF, unfortunately. The characters held a lot of potential.

‘The Witch King’ was not only magical, moving, and rather twisty/turny, but it also brought some very much needed—and wanted—diversity to the universe of fairy and witch fiction. It was so good, and I really didn’t want it to end.

The emotional bonds between the characters made my heart ridiculously happy, and the combination of all their distinct personalities had chemistry sparking off the page like fireworks.💥

Wyatt, Briar, and Gem were probably my favorites, but I really did adore all (and rightfully loathe some) of the characters; they were all very alive. Wyatt and Amir were complex, grey protagonists, and a messy, yet endearing, couple. The world building was easy to comprehend.

I think Edgmon has a lot of potential. I enjoyed the metaphor of witches in a fae world equaling Trans people in a cis world. I liked the diversity of the cast! I think the book suffers from a lot of telling rather than showing--a fourth of the way in, Wyatt literally spells our the metaphor. And what fae is named Derek?? We're meant to take that seriously??

So, this is like, fun. It reads like teen fanfiction, kind of, and I really really enjoyed when the author acknowledges harmful fantasy tropes like "darkness = evil", etc, and I really enjoyed all the trans rep, etc. But I think prose-wise, it was pretty average, and the plot moved in a strange way for me: much too fast, and not giving enough time with our characters. So, this is cute and short and bucks traditional fantasy notions in important ways, but also, just fine otherwise.

This is a delightful take on urban fantasy with an LGBTQ+ twist. It was equal parts funny, sad, and magical.

I didn’t know how much I needed this book until I read it. The Witch King features highly relatable queer and trans characters fighting to save their world and a very lovely friends-to-enemies-to-lovers romance. And it is a hilarious book.