The Foxglove King Review and Analysis
Table of Contents
I was recently at my local library the other day browsing the shelves for a new book to read up and I found this book called The Foxglove King. Now, somehow, I wasn’t familiar with this book, but the premise seemed interesting and I have to admit, the cover did catch my eye. So, without really knowing anything about the story, I started reading and I was in for a pretty interesting surprise. I decided to write up my review and thoughts regarding Foxglove King by Hannah Whitten and I’ll be doing a spoiler-free review and analysis of this book. Now, let’s talk about whether or not The Foxglove King is worth reading.
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Spoiler-Free Review of The Foxglove King
The Synopsis
The Foxglove King tells the story of a young woman named Lore who does undercover missions for poison runners in the city of Dellaire. She had been 13 when she escaped a cult in the catacombs, and her family is unknown.
Lore’s job running poisons allows her to have some semblance of a life, but it’s not all sunshine and roses. She has the ability to channel a dark magic known as Mortem, which was born from death and is a commodity in the city that is highly illegal and sought after all the same.
During one such poison run, she is caught by a group of warrior-monks called the Presque Mort and is approached by the Sainted King August Arceneaux who wants her to help with an investigation into what is causing entire villages in the country to die off overnight.
Joining her is Gabriel, a former duke and member of the Presque Mort. She also has frequent run-ins with the eccentric Prince Bastian Arceneaux, who isn’t King August’s favorite child, let’s put it at that.
I think that there are definitely good and bad elements alike regarding The Foxglove King and for the most part, I’d say that it was an enjoyable read. Although there were moments that I found myself a bit bored at, I think that there was more good than bad in my opinion.
The World Building
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I think for me, where this book shines the most is in the effort put into the world building. A lot of romantic fantasy (romantasy) books tend to fall a bit flat in world building or they seem to rush their worlds a bit to get the story out. However, I didn’t feel that much in The Foxglove King, which was a pleasant surprise!
Religion
There’s a lot of emphasis on the religious and magical system of the story, and I always like to see how authors tackle religious systems. In the case of The Foxglove King, we had a polytheistic system where the magic is derived directly from the deities of said religion. Religion actually has a really big role in the story and there’s a lot of talk about it, so it’s integrated and exists and is spoken thoroughly about.
There are some cool epigraphs as well from the religious text called The Tracts and we get some interesting footnotes about why certain passages were stricken sometimes from some copies of the Tracts. It’s interesting also how there’s a flair of theocracy through the fact that the Arceneaux bloodline is considered to be basically as important as the gods and how they are sort of the “chosen” family by the god Apollius. I liked seeing the integration of government and religion there.
I did feel though that some elements of the religious system were a bit missing, namely, how it actually impacts people’s daily lives. We get glimpses of the fact that there’s a religion, but surprisingly, basically nobody seems to follow a religion. We get a glimpse at a prayer system that’s never really constant, we hear people mention the gods but we don’t really know what else the religion calls for in veneration of said gods, and none of the characters presented were religious at all. Minus the Presque Mort characters, but even Gabriel was iffy on that front most of the time.
Obviously, people in real life aren’t perfect, but I would’ve liked to see at least one character that was more into the religious system so we can see it implemented more in the story.
Magic
The magic system, in my opinion, wasn’t my favorite. I think it’s mostly because for most of the book, we don’t really understand how it works exactly for a while. However, I do believe that that’s mainly because the main character herself doesn’t entirely understand how it works either. Still though, even when you get a lot of glimpses into it, the idea of death magic is cool, but I wasn’t sure if I was a fan of the way it was written in this book.
The Country
I also do find that the French-inspiration was clear and obvious, which I thought was good. There are mentions of other nations like the Kirythean Empire and things like that, and there are references to different musical styles, fashion styles, foods, etc…
However, something that I felt maybe could’ve been a bit better was that the language is too 1:1 French. I like to see alterations in fantasy books for languages and I think it’s more creative that way. I personally liked the French inspiration, but the country isn’t France. Also, what is Kirythean Empire? What’s their culture? What difference is there language-wise? Their ruler is called Jax, so are they English-speaking? French?
We also didn’t really hear about any other countries outside of basically these two areas, but we know that there’s shipping and that there’s other countries in the world, so maybe a bit more emphasis on that just to enhance the immersion of the world would’ve been better.
The Characters
The characters for me were a hit-or-miss. I really liked Michael, the book-obsessed monk that spent his time in the library. I also thought that Anton had a really interesting air of intrigue around him. King August wasn’t too bad, but we didn’t really see a lot of him for me to make a solid opinion on him.
However, the characters fell just a bit flat for me. Lore is supposed to be an undercover spy for poison runners in the beginning of the story, but throughout the book, she just fumbles badly constantly. It’s like she’s never properly spied once in her life, it’s almost ridiculous.
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Bastian is supposed to be the playboy prince and whatnot, but I wasn’t a huge fan of him. I can’t put my finger on it exactly, but he just kinda bored me. I could see the archetype in his actions and words, but he just didn’t seem to have much of a real personality for me.
Gabriel is interesting and I thought of the three main cast he was the best, but even he had some boring elements to him. However, I thought he was a smart character and it’s clear he’s got a lot of internal conflict. His past is pretty tragic and it’s interesting to see that woven into his current actions. However, I wasn’t a fan of the way he turned out by the end of the book.
So, if I had to pick a favorite character from the main cast, it would be Gabriel. I think Lore didn’t have a lot of development throughout the story and as a reader, I felt like I was watching stuff happen, but not really feeling it through her character.
Overall Thoughts
Overall, I think that The Foxglove King is a good book and I really enjoyed reading it! I didn’t find myself wanting to DNF it or anything. However, there were some issues in my opinion that stood out and did affect and impact my reading experience. Not by too much, but I noticed it.
This book had a clear romantic arc in it, and the romantic arc was interesting but I found myself more interested in the fantasy arc of the story. The romance was pretty good and I at least did like that it wasn’t the only motivation of Lore’s character the entire time. Sometimes, I feel like romantasy books often just forget that they’re supposed to be telling a fantasy story too.
Anyways, if I had to rate The Foxglove King out of 5 stars, which is my usual rating system, I’d say this book gets a solid 3.5 to 4 out of 5 stars. So, let’s call it a 3.75 out of 5. There were good elements and bad elements alike, but my enjoyment of the book was solid enough for me to not be too bothered by the “bad” elements.
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