A huge thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for letting me read an ARC of this phenomenal book!

The Foxglove King was everything I wanted, wrapped in a dark fantasy package. I'm a sucker for a chaotic prince (hot) and morally conflicted heroines. Our story takes place in a gothic fantasy setting, during a time of carriages, drug runs, and royalty vs religion. Even our secondary and background characters live and breathe off the page, each one full of depth and background. It's unlike anything I've ever read before, and I'm pleased to say that Hannah Whitten has taken leaps and bounds in her creativity and writing skill. Color me thoroughly impressed. I find myself wishing I could read this beauty for the first time again. Let's just say it's put me into a little bit of a reading slump (which is really the highest compliment).

I recommend this amazing book to lovers of Daughter of the Drowned Empire by Frankie Diane Mallis, the Kingdom of Runes series by Audrey Gray, and Daughter of No Worlds by Carissa Broadbent.

3.75 stars

“Lore was selfish. If it came down to her or the world, Lore chose herself.”

The Foxglove King was a dark fantasy that read quite similarly to a YA despite being an adult novel. The story follows our main character Lore who is a poison runner who is hiding her abilities to control mortem, essentially death force that flows in all objects and people. When her powers are discovered she is thrust into the court with the help of a surly monk to get close to the prince to unravel the mystery of why entire cities are dying overnight.

I did myself a disservice by going into the book with high expectations due to what other reviewers had been saying. The story fell flat compared to the high praise I had heard, at least for me.

I wished this book was longer. It somehow felt that the entirety of the novel was exposition to the actual plot. I wanted to connect to the characters and hoped for more fleshed out interactions. I was constantly wanting more. Whitten’s writing was simplistic and easy to follow, however, at times, I wanted more subtlety.

Also despite being marketed as a romance, I felt like there was very little actual romance or palpable chemistry between characters. I didn’t care for the pseudo-love triangle but that might just be a personal preference. Gabe was toxic and Bastian was barely present until the end.

The magic and lore of the world was the most compelling concept in the story. The imagery of how manipulating mortem affected the body was macabre in the best possible way. I honestly wanted the story to be more graphic and dark with body horror.

I do want to know how the story continues, it is a promising start to what I hope becomes a darker and more sinister trilogy.

Thank you to Netgalley and Orbit books for the ARC!

This was by far the most infuriating book I have read in a very long time. I was utterly gripped by the premise and the world building from the first moment, I literally could not put the book down. I really like the characters Lore and Bastian, well especially Bastian. But everything infuriating about this story had to do with one problem and that problem bears the name Gabe.

Thanks to Hachette for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Cons: The worldbuilding struck me as shallow, two of three main characters (Lore and Gabriel) are not well fleshed out, the whole thing reads like YA and some of the inclusivity is awkward and forced.

Pros: Bastian is almost a perfect enough character to carry the whole novel with a flourish and flair. Whitten is masterful in writing about just plain sexual desire and how it can slip in unexpected ways, or more accurately, in queer ways. I feel that Whitten is on the cutting edge of this king of writing and will only get better and better, and so will this series. She is also wonderful with humorous dialogue and there is loads of it to enjoy here. The ending was spectacular and I impatiently begin my very long wait to discover what happens with the delicious trio of the royal, the witch, and the monk. Adaptation is guaranteed, so that is something else to look forward to.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for this ARC!

Story Synopsis: At thirteen, Lore escaped from a secret society deep within the city's catacombs. For ten years, she worked in the city’s criminal underbelly, keeping a secret hidden from all but a few. When Lore finds herself in the clutches of the Crown and is forced to reveal her secret, her world shifts. What was once a curse may be a blessing, but she needs to find trustworthy allies before she can truly step into her power.

Thoughts & Feelings: I was excited to get approved for this ARC! It’s been getting more and more hype in adult fantasy circles. It does not disappoint! Some bits of the novel felt overly descriptive (the way a dress looks or the ceiling of a cathedral), but that’s my personal preference. Whitten does not come close to some of the more loquacious writers (Looking at you, Dickens). The best part about this book is how much more I wanted. While the ending was good, the story doesn’t feel over. I hope there’s a second book!

A really great read. Enjoyed all of it. 10/10 I love the characters. Really loved the way the author makes you wanting more.

I may have set a personal record the longest time it’s ever taken me to finish a book because I found this book so tedious. The pacing is incredibly slow and the story itself takes forever to get going but even when it does I just could not care. Lore could have been a great protagonist with her hard backstory and mystery origins but she’s never given the chance to hold your attention. Unfortunately she just feels like the pawn of the people in charge and a meager figure for the author to use in a very annoying love triangle. Likewise Gabriel could have been a very interesting character in his own right with his own tragic origin story but instead we get a sad puppet and the worst attempt at a love interest. If someone looks at you with complete disgust because your very being horrifies them there’s zero room to pretend there’s any connection and to continue to act like there is was just gross. Bastian ends up being the most nuanced character but by the end the author seemed to want to turn him into a villain which was just weird. The world building is mediocre and uninteresting. It mostly involves religion being bad and those in power being awful. The story wraps up very quickly and never seems to offer any resolution or payoff to the reader. If this is the beginning of a series I have no desire to see what happens next or frankly to ever read anything by this author again. I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

I read <i>For the Wolf</i>by Hannah Whitten when it first came out and was not impressed. It felt unfinished in its world building and worn down in its creative plot. So, I picked up <i>The Foxglove King</i> on a whim, mainly because the cover was interesting.

I'm glad I did. Even though it's long, I tore through this book and I am now so excited for not only the sequel but to see where Hannah Whitten goes with her career. The amount of growth as a writer from <i>For the Wolf</i> is great and took her from an author I know of to one I'm excited about.

This book has an interesting magic system and the main character, Lore, has mixed feelings about the magic she's so good at, because it reanimates death and it's gruesome and unnatural and, importantly, the author does not shy away from that. Add in that the main character Gabe is missing an eye and that the prince is bi and Lore's adoptive mothers are gay and sprinkle all of that with political intrigue with a side of not-dead but dead horse called 'Horse' and it starts to become apparent that this book is more original.

I'm excited to read the next one.

There are authors who painstakingly construct a world before they set their stories in motion, and others allow the world to grow around the narrative. Hannah Whitten's the Foxglove King belies a deep high-fantasy setting fueled by death that never sacrifices its likeable characters for the sake of encyclopedic world-building.

Spy and smuggler Lore is on the cusp of her twenty-fourth birthday when she is thrown into a deadly, dashing game of courtly intrigue between the reigning King August and his heir-apparent Bastian while their nation is headed toward war. Lore needs to navigate the ruling powers of faith and monarchy while keeping herself safe from the darkness of her past.

For all the various elements at play in The Foxglove King, Whitten's story never feels overstuffed or shallow for the sake of brevity. Admittedly, I'm an easy mark for epigraphs and find that they can build out a story without leading to massive infodumps interrupting the action. Often the little snippets of lore would hint at where the chapter was headed or provide a view of a larger map that could never be covered in a single book. The Foxglove King takes place in a single city–and mainly in the court of the Sainted King–so to have chapters jump to other locations for the sake of sketching out the map would've been distracting and taken away from the intimacy of the story.

Speaking of intimacy, Whitten pulls off a relationship that I rarely see in fantasy. This might be because I haven't read as much romance as I ought to, but I'm not familiar with Whitten's not-love-triangle between the core trio of Lore, Gabriel and Bastian. When the prince first comes into the story, I expected him to become Gabe's romantic rival and for the story to play out following the typical tropes and conventions of the genre. Without getting into spoilers, Whitten's circumventions are exciting to follow and true to the characters she has created.

The cast of characters in The Foxglove King comes across as more nuanced than a collection of tropes designed to move the story along–yet it never feels like Whitten is trying too hard for the sake of novelty. An easy-to-predict story can be enjoyable for its own sake, and there are foreshadowed elements to guide the twists and turns, but nothing ever feels rote or overly planned out. Whitten hints toward a broader plot that will grow in subsequent sequels, though regardless of what comes next, the series is off to a strong start.

I love everything Hannah Whitten does; so this might be a little biased.

The main character, Lore, seems so badass and misunderstood you can't help but root for her. I kind of wish that we got more information on Lore's past because that's such an interesting part of the story. I also got frustrated with Lore's indecisive nature, which overall made the read more enjoyable. I thought the love triangle-ish (it's not so simple) was very interesting, going back to Lore being indecisive again.
I will definitely be reading the next book in the series whenever it comes out. I also would definitely recommend this to a friend.

What an amazing contrast to For the Wolf! Hannah written is an incredible author and she has gone to an all new level with The Foxglove King. This story has all the promise of being the next big fantasy sensation. All the courtly politics of a Cruel prince tied together with a forbidden romance an interesting magic system and absolutely stunning world building. Can’t wait to watch the series evolve.

I’m giving this one four stars because I was under the impression that this was Whitten’s debut into adult books, and so I was expecting some spice. I’m thinking this would be more likely categorized into “new adult” as there is adult themes, but there wasn’t any explicitly spicy scenes. I did really like the premise of this book, and it was darker than I thought it would be. Some of my theories ended up being correct, and some did not; which is actually better in my opinion!
Lore is a spy/dealer/etc. who can channel Mortem (the death magic of this world). After a deal gone wrong, and bringing a horse back from the dead, she’s captured by the church and crown to help figure out why entire villages are found dead with no indication how they died. There’s also budding problems with the neighboring country that is leading to war, and Lore is tasked with finding the spy in court.
Finding answers proves to be more difficult than she thought though, as an attraction to Gabe, her “Mort” bodyguard, and the crown prince Bastian grow.
I think this will be a great start to a new series, and I will be very interested to see how the story progresses!

Set in a glittering world of twisted magic and fallen gods, The Foxglove King boasts an intoxicating combination of mystery, magic and romance, twined with impeccable tension and characters I instantly became obsessed with. I could not put it down.

The Foxglove King is an exciting, can't-put-down fantasy that follows a trio of complex characters in a world composed of a unique magic system based on life and death. The world building is excellent and each chapter flows into the next. The three main characters (Lore, Bastian, and Gabe) are all well-developed. As stated in previous reviews, I love morally gray characters, and these three do not disappoint. The characters not only face life-altering obstacles but also must deal with complicated relationships, past and present betrayals, political corruption, and unknown magic.

After a job-gone-wrong, Lore is forced to work for the Sainted King as both his spy and necromancer. Gabe, a duke-turned-monk is assigned as Lore's protection. Bastian, the Sainted King's heir, has his own reasons for wanting to get close to Lore (and avoid any interactions with Gabe). With everyone aiming to outsmart everyone else, danger and chaos ensue. The banter between the three main characters, especially between Bastian and Lore, is fun and witty. The ending definitely leaves the reader wanting more. I CANNOT wait for the sequel. The Foxglove King is already one of my favorite books of 2023.

Thank you NetGalley and Orbit for the eARC of The Foxglove King. Now my only question is… how am I possibly going to wait a year for the second book!!!

Rich with religious deconstruction, royaltycore splendor, and unresolved sexual tension that is the best execution of a threesome love triangle I could imagine, Whitten spins a new delightful tale of death magic and sweet poison.

I really liked this book! I was so invested in the characters Lore, Gabe, and Bastion. There is a good amount of action, mystery, magic, sexual tension… but that ending! Now I know it’s not a stand alone. How long must I wait to continue this story?? I’m already impatient. 😅
The author did a great job making me care for these characters, I felt like I was right there with them on the journey. And I love some good haughty sun prince banter!
And I don’t care what everyone says about love triangles. I’m here for it.
I can’t wait for the next book in the series!!

I enjoyed this fantasy romance book. I was a little bit confused in the beginning when she was world-building but after the first chapter, it was easy to get into. I can't wait for the next one to come out.

Thank you net galley, and the publisher for a digital copy of this book for my honest review.

Had a hard time putting this one down! Lore is a drug runner turned spy, and she teams up with a couple familiar strangers for an assignment she's been forced into. It had Crescent City vibes (still very original- nothing about the world was similar), but was much easier for me to get into than CC. Characters were well developed, the religion was complex but not impossible to understand- sometimes I never really *get* the underlying mythos in this genre but did not feel that way in this book. I think the well placed tracts at the beginning of each chapter helped. I'm dying to know what happens next.

I'm honestly quite shocked that this is written by the same author who wrote ‘For the Wolf.’

I struggled with ‘For the Wolf’ because it had terrible and unoriginal world-building, but this book does not have that problem! The world-building is still not perfect, some readers would consider it info-dumpy, but it's lightyears better than HW's debut novel. And it's so unique! The different death powers, religious orders, political posturing, and threat of war make this highly enjoyable.

I had no problems understanding the magic system, the positions of court nobles, or character motivations. The story feels like HW has a very clear idea/intention with how the series is going to go, which is something I did not get from ‘For the Wolf.’

So a really great start to what I hope will be a very promising series and it makes me so happy to see how much HW has grown and improved as an author!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read The Foxglove King by Hannah Whitten!

The beginning of this story was a bit slow for me. If you like reading about necromancy, magic systems, world building and love triangles you will love this book.