hot take felt like too much tell don’t show, ended up skipping ahead bc I wanted to see how it ended.
I think my biggest issue with this book was that I felt that our male lead–Felix–was much more interesting of a character than Saskia, despite the fact that she’s the titular Witch Queen to be wooed. She felt like an idea of a role (sarcastic, misunderstood, guarded) without enough time for us to see this and believe it, so we skip over by having her friends (the other ironically named Queens of Villainy, because of course this is our romantasy and therefore they are misunderstood and really just trying to stave off power-hungry imperial powers at their borders).
Felix had more questions to be answered, I suppose—we know Saskia will eventually fall for him and protect her kingdom, but it’s uncertain what route Felix will take. Will he continue to be a marshmallow? Become a benign archduke and reclaim his kingdom? Rule alongside Saskia as a consort? Because all of these paths are open, he’s just more interesting to watch and observe. And perhaps I’m being unduly harsh, but I basically wanted the true lead to be Saskia.
That being said, I did flip ahead because I wanted to know what happened, even if I wasn’t particularly wedded to figuring out how we got there. I think this series holds promise, and it’s clear that there’s room to grow with books featuring the other queens. Maybe I’ll pick up a copy of the next if I feel so moved 😊