I didn’t know much about this book going in, I picked it up because I thought the cover was pretty (I’m a sucker for anything purple).
The Foxglove King focuses on Lore, a young woman who works as a spy for a smuggling operation ran by her adoptive mothers. She also has necromancy-related magical powers (Which are illegal? Sort of? Maybe?). When she’s caught using them in public and arrested, she’s forced by the King of Wherever (I’m pretty sure there was an actual country or city or something mentioned, but it wasn’t really emphasized as a name and never really stuck, so I’m going with that…) and his brother, the head priest of their religion, into using her necromancy powers to help investigate attacks on nearby villages. They also want her to spy on the Prince, who they suspect of being somehow behind the attacks.
This is technically an adult novel (the main characters are 23-24), but at times felt very much like a YA novel (Which is fine! I like YA, but it’s not what I was expecting for this). There’s hints of a love triangle, which felt drawn-out for the sake of being angsty.
I liked Lore, I liked the magic system (yay, necromancy?), and some of the worldbuilding details were cool – there’s hints of involvement from some dead Gods (both in terms of being dead-and-gone, and in terms of one of them being the God of Death), which was intriguing. This was an easy read (I read it in 3 settings over 2 days), but I definitely think it had some pacing issues. The ending especially felt very rushed, with a lot happening in the final chapters, which I don’t think was given adequate breathing room.
Overall, I liked it but didn’t love it. I’m a little on the fence about whether I should continue the series (the second book, The Hemlock Queen, was recently released).