I’m not entirely sure how I ended up with a copy of The High Mountain Court, by A. K. Mulford. I don’t remember buying it or being gifted it, but it’s probably been sitting on my shelf for at least the past few years. I didn’t know much about this book before starting to read it.
It tells the story of nineteen-year-old Remy, who believes herself to be the last red witch alive after the King of the Northern Court invaded the High Mountain Court when she was a child, slaughtering the ruling family and most of the people living there, including Remy’s family. When the story opens, Remy is working in a tavern with her adopted mother and brother, attempting to hide her red witch heritage from witch hunters in service of the Northern Court King. One day, a prince of the Eastern Kingdom finds her, and asks for her help in finding the supposedly dead heir to the High Mountain Court, in exchange for which he will provide the location where other surviving red witches reside.
Honestly, this was pretty generic and bland. Most of the countries are just called “the Northern Kingdom”, “the Eastern Kingdom”, etc., which is pretty indicative of the effort that was put into the worldbuilding. Every plot point is very obvious before it happens, the characters are all fairly one-note. The writing was clunky.
This is apparently the first book in a five-book series. I don’t think I will be continuing with it.