I greatly enjoyed Hannah Whitten’s debut duology, For the Wolf and For the Throne, and was excited to get my hands on this first book of her new series The Nightshade Crown. It’s better than the Wilderwood books in some ways, not as good in others. But absolutely worth the reading.
The protagonist of the books is Lore, a young woman working as a poison smuggler. In the world of the Nightshade Crown, Death magic has been loose in the world since the fall of the Goddess of Death some centuries before. Thanks to this, poison can (when taken carefully) extend one’s life, but at a steep cost. Lore herself is able to use the death magic, but this practice is dangerous, and forbidden by both the church and the crown.
Things take a turn when Lore’s abilities are discovered. She’s captured by the church, and given an “offer” - help the king uncover proof of his son’s treason, or die for the crime of necromancy.
To revisit my original comment about how it’s both better and worse. I’ll start with the ways it’s worse. Lore is a good protagonist, but I didn’t find her quite as compelling as Red - though I like her considerably more than Neve, whose name I actually had to look up - though this is really only a criticism because of how much I liked Red. I’ll also say that a number of bits and pieces of the plot don’t really seem to fit together well. The whole thing feels kind of rough. If this book were a stew (bear with me here) I’d say it’s the kind of stew that will taste better the next day, after it’s cooled in the fridge and the flavors have had a chance to develop and harmonize.
There were also two areas that felt very cliched to me. One is the Versailles-inspired royal court, living in obscene decadence walled away from the suffering of the poors. Read that sort of thing too many times. Also the prince, who presents a façade of a partying, oversexed ne’er-do-well, but really the appearance of being uncaring as a façade to hide how much he actually does care. Read that before too, though he did get more interesting as the book went on.
Where the book really shines is in the worldbuilding (which I thought was moderately weak in the Wilderwood duology). The world that Hannah Whitten has come up with here is interesting and original, and I’m super interested to see where she’s going with it.
And, for all my complaints about the pieces of the book not quite fitting together, I still couldn’t put it down. I enjoyed this a lot, and am looking forward to its general release if for no other reason than I want to talk to people about it.
Comes out on March 7.
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