“Divinity is never destroyed… Only echoed.”

I marathoned the last 150 pages last night, and boy, oh boy was it a rollercoaster and a half. Whitten certainly stepped up the stakes with this third book, and I was glued to the pages.

My favorite element to the story was actually the world building, and I’m hoping the sequel delves into it more because I have TONS of questions. In my opinion, there’s substantial improvement in the world building of this book compared to For the Wolf. For the Throne and The Foxglove King are pretty much tied. I was let down with how little information we got in regards to the gods and places beyond the city, but also, that’s just a fact that comes with most first books in a series. Essentially what we know for now is that the corpse of a goddess leaks death magic, Mortem, underground the city of Dellaire. When Mortem comes into contact with people, the magic can either give a sort of high/ hallucination, or in high quantities, kill the individual. Not to mention, this goddess was struck down by the Sun god, who happens to be the one everyone worships. Lore, the protagonist, has a natural affinity for Mortem, which is incredibly rare. It was interesting reading about her complicated relationship to magic that is criminalized by the Crown, and of course, theories are raging when we find out natural born necromancers are basically nonexistent.

This book is definitely hard New Adult, so I see a mix of elements between YA and Adult fantasy. I wouldn’t quite call this a romantasy book yet since the romance is pretty tame besides angst and buildup, but one of the main tropes is a love triangle. I’m not a huge fan of love triangles, but I’m pretty neutral on this one. There’s just a lot of petty arguing and passive aggression between the boys, partly due to their history before Lore, and I’m never a huge fan of that. Since the romance was a side plot, I’m expecting it to pick up in the sequel, especially since the love triangle is still in full swing.

The Foxglove King is very much a setup book for the trilogy. Not much honestly happens besides Lore getting captured and the final big scene. This book is heavily political, but not fully in a good way since Lore is dealing with a rambunctious prince, pampered youth her age, and unstable leaders. I'm usually one for politics, but I thought the pacing should've moved faster. I get that the main plot of this book is figuring out the allegiances of characters as well as the mysterious town massacres, but I do wish scenes like the illegal boxing match, Sun Prince parties, and library visits were shortened or taken out entirely. It just lagged and muddled the progression of the mystery, in my opinion. The stakes were just not high until the end, but when they did, it was A LOT.

At times the writing did make me cringe because Lore was just trying too hard to be this unbothered, street kid, essentially. It's my own personal issue with her character because sassy, bull-headed characters can go either way with me. She was fine most of the time, but occasionally, I just would shake my head at something stupid she said in the worst possible situation. I couldn't help but think: You're gonna get yourself killed!! Idiot!! Lore is a very brash character too, so she's constantly making mistakes and getting into trouble. She's been wronged countless of times too, particularly by her loved ones, so I can see the context of her bad decision making in that regard. This first installment is truly about finding herself, her identity when her life is thrown to the wolves. The sequel will definitely clear the air a bit now that Lore has more context to her destiny/ family.

Anyway, I’m definitely going to pick up the sequel. The world alone hooked its claws in me, and I want some answers. I’m a big fan of Whitten’s sequel books rather than the first, so I’m very excited for what’s to come in this trilogy.

Thank you to Orbit Books for the finished copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own.