The Hedgewitch Queen

Author: Lillth Saintcrow

Series: Hedgewitch # 1 (Now The Romances of Arquitiane series)

Genres: Historical Fantasy, Young Adult, Romance, Adventure

Publisher: Orbit

Released: 1 December 2011

Summary: courtesy of goodreads.com Vianne di Rocancheil is a lady waiting at the Court of Arquitaine, where she studies her books, watches for intrigue, and shepherds her foolhardy Princesse through the glittering whirl. Court is a sometimes-unpleasant waltz, especially for the unwary, but Vianne treads its measured steps well. Unfortunately, the dance has changed. Treachery is afoot in gilded and velvet halls. A sorcerous conspiracy is unleashed, with blood, death, and warfare close behind. Vianne must flee, carrying the Great Seal of Arquitaine with her. This is the one thing the conspirators need to rule, and they won’t rest until they have it. A life of dances, intrigues, and fashion has not prepared Vianne for this. Nor has it prepared her for Tristan d’Arcenne, Captain of the King’s Guard and player in the most dangerous games conspiracy can devise. Yet to save her country and avenge her Princesse, Vianne will become what she must and do whatever is required.
For Fans Of: Touch of Power, The Girl in the Steel Corset, and The Girl of Fire and Thorns

My Review: The Hedgewitch Queen was…well, it was.  There were a lot of things about The Hedgewitch Queen that I liked, and a lot that – fell short of what I wanted to happen. Let’s start with the bad news and work our way towards the good stuff.  First, this was long.  Exponentially long, and slower than molasses.  There were a lot of scenes that I kept thinking afterwards, “couldn’t that have been cut out?”  I mean how many times does a girl need to get a fever and nearly die, right?  However, I did feel as though the book was original, the ideas and the love story were both pretty gripping, but I found myself stumbling over certain words, a lot of words in Hedgewitch are in some sort of French that I couldn’t really understand, I got the jist of their meaning because of context, however I felt like they were overused.  Also: the ending was a cliffhanger!  After an extremely slow paced book there comes this big old blam of cliff-hangeryness that I hated.  Include the fact that after all of that un-needed fluff and stuff I was thrown said cliff hanger and that made me annoyed.  No, no thank you.

Tristan, however, Tristan was someone that I could latch on to, where Vianne seems to do a lot of stupid things regarding magic, Tristan remains (seemingly) levelheaded throughout the entire book, although I think my opinion of him will change with summaries, and reviews of The Bandit King coming out.  I would recommend this book with a warning, although I found it to be satisfying, a well thought out historical action/adventure/romance it will take a while to read.