Wooing the Witch Queen by Stephanie Burgis Series: Queens of Villainy #1
Published by Bramble on February 20, 2025
Genres: Fantasy, Romance
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Source: NetGalley
In a Gaslamp-lit world where hags and ogres lurk in thick pine forests, three magical queens form an uneasy alliance to protect their lands from invasion…and love turns their world upside down.
Queen Saskia is the wicked sorceress everyone fears. After successfully wrestling the throne from her evil uncle, she only wants one thing: to keep her people safe from the empire next door. For that, she needs to spend more time in her laboratory experimenting with her spells. She definitely doesn’t have time to bring order to her chaotic library of magic.
When a mysterious dark wizard arrives at her castle, Saskia hires him as her new librarian on the spot. “Fabian” is sweet and a little nerdy, and his requests seem a little strange – what in the name of Divine Elva is a fountain pen? – but he’s getting the job done. And if he writes her flirtatious poetry and his innocent touch makes her skin singe, well…
Little does Saskia know that the "wizard" she’s falling for is actually an Imperial archduke in disguise, with no magical training whatsoever. On the run, with perilous secrets on his trail and a fast growing yearning for the wicked sorceress, he's in danger from her enemies and her newfound allies, too. When his identity is finally revealed, will their love save or doom each other?
I’m a huge fan of Stephanie Burgis’s other series, Regency Dragons (which features the heartwarming and fantastic Scales and Sensibility and Claws and Contrivances), so I was beyond excited to pick up her latest work, Wooing the Witch Queen. Wooing the Witch Queen is a cozy and wholesome romantasy and reading this light and fun novel is much like receiving a warm hug from a friend you haven’t seen in some time. Wooing the Witch Queen features two likable protagonists, Archduke Felix and the eponymous witch queen, Saskia, who slowly catch feelings for one another. With royalty though, their romance has big implications for the world at large.
Like all of Burgis’s works, Wooing the Witch Queen has an ingenious premise. Saskia, a feared wicked witch, has just managed to wrest back control of her kingdom from evil uncle. Unfortunately for her, there is no rest for the wicked, and she finds herself up to her eyeballs in political machinations. Unable to devote herself to her research, she jumps at the chance to hire a dark wizard to organize her magical library. Unbeknownst to her, the mysterious gentleman in question, Felix (alias Fabian) is actually the archduke of an enemy empire, with a lot more to him than meets the eye. Naturally, it isn’t too long before sparks fly.
“But for the first time since she’d repossessed this castle, she found herself thinking that she might not mind spending more of her own time in the library, from now on.”
Wooing the Witch Queen is interesting in that it is both a slow burn and it isn’t. Saskia and Felix/Fabian feel a pull towards each other the moment they meet, with their interactions over time leading them to want to get to know one another more. I’m not a fan of insta-lust myself, so I was glad to see that the two didn’t leap into anything from the get go and take their time to get to know and appreciate one another. Despite their status of royalty from warring nations, their relationship is more friends to lovers than enemies to lovers. Fans of the former trope will undoubtedly find plenty to enjoy in their blossoming regard for one another.
“According to the stories he’s heard, Queen Saskia not only delighted in surrounding herself with vicious, inhuman monsters—she was one herself and always had been.”
I was really excited for the prospect of an evil queen getting a happy ending, but admittedly, I was a little disappointed by the execution. Despite her reputation, which does proceed her, Saskia is never really evil. In fact, she’s a wonderful human being who wants rights for all, not just humans, and will stop at nothing for equality for all sentient beings, which is considered quite revolutionary. Despite being the strongest sorceress in the world, readers never see her doing anything villainous or committing many extreme acts of powers, let alone any evil ones for the greater good or anything.
Instead, the rumors of her misdeeds are greatly exaggerated, created by her uncle as propaganda in manipulating the people into believing he needed to rule. While this is pretty adorable and all well and good, I personally would have loved to see the queen wearing a crown of bones and using crows as familiars be a teensy bit more bloodthirsty and devious. However, that’s just my personal preference.
“Truly, she should have known better, by now, than ever to have worried. A dark wizard who spoke to everyone he met with kindness, respected all nonhuman members of her staff, and looked after her most impudent young crow with unfailing sweetness was a rare and precious find. She wouldn’t let herself forget that again.”
But Saskia isn’t the only character with a heart of gold, the male lead, Felix/Fabian is even more of a cinnamon roll than her. It’s so nice to read a romantasy novel without a problematic male character. There is no controlling behavior or toxic masculinity to be found here, as Felix is not at all emasculated by his love interest being the most powerful woman in the world at all. Instead, he sees Saskia for who she is as a person and not for what she can provide for him.
For me, it was a bit too obvious that these two characters would work out any challenges that arose due to Felix’s secret identity, past lovers, or anything else. The two were just too sincere in their affections to let anything hurt the other. I would have liked to feel a little bit more tension and suspense during moments where problems came up, but I have that problem with a lot of cozy fantasy novels, which is kind of the opposite of what the entire genre is about. So, take my opinion with a grain of salt.
Reading the preview of the next book in the series leads me to think that there will be less of a wholesome romance between the two new leads, and more of contentious one, which will undoubtedly be very entertaining. Readers who enjoy cozy fantasies/romantasies, especially fans of The Embraced/Embraced by Magic series or Elisa Kova’s Married to Magic will find plenty to love here.
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