The Hedgewitch Queen

Author: Lillith St. Crow

Series: Romances of Arquitaine # 1 (Previously Hedgewitch # 1)

Genres: Historical Fantasy, Young Adult, Romance, Adventure

Publisher: Orbit

Released: 1 December 2011

Summary: via goodreads.com Vianne di Rocancheil is a lady waiting at the Court of Arquitaine, where she studies her books, watches for intrigue, and shepherds her foolhardy Princesse through the glittering whirl. Court is a sometimes-unpleasant waltz, especially for the unwary, but Vianne treads its measured steps well. Unfortunately, the dance has changed. Treachery is afoot in gilded and velvet halls. A sorcerous conspiracy is unleashed, with blood, death, and warfare close behind. Vianne must flee, carrying the Great Seal of Arquitaine with her. This is the one thing the conspirators need to rule, and they won’t rest until they have it. A life of dances, intrigues, and fashion has not prepared Vianne for this. Nor has it prepared her for Tristan d’Arcenne, Captain of the King’s Guard and player in the most dangerous games conspiracy can devise. Yet to save her country and avenge her Princesse, Vianne will become what she must and do whatever is required.

My Review: The Hedgewitch Queen was…well, it was. There were a lot of things about The Hedgewitch Queen that I liked, and a lot that – fell short of what I wanted to happen. Let’s start with the bad news and work our way towards the good stuff. First, this was long. Exponentially long, and slower than molasses. There were a lot of scenes that I kept thinking, “couldn’t that have been cut out?” Although I felt as though the book was original, the ideas and the love story were both pretty gripping, but I found myself stumbling over certain words, a lot of words in Hedgewitch are in some sort of French that I couldn’t really understand, I got the jist because of context, however I felt like they were overused. And again, the ending was a cliffhanger, after an extremely slow paced book there comes this big old blam of cliff hangeryness that I hated. After all of that un-needed fluff and stuff I was thrown a cliff hanger. No, no thank you.
Tristan, however, Tristan was someone that I could latch on to, where Vianne seems to do a lot of stupid things, Tristan remains (seemingly) levelheaded throughout the entire book, although I think my opinion of him will change. I would recommend this book with a warning, although I found it to be satisfying, a well thought out historical action/adventure/romance it will take a while to read.