Wooing the Witch Queen by Stephanie Burgis – Review

Published: February 18, 2025

Publisher: Bramble

Series: Queens of Villainy #1

Genre: Fantasy, Romance

Pages: 297 (Kindle)

My Rating: 4.5 Stars

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis:
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?

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Wooing the Witch Queen is an utterly delightful romantasy and I could not put it down! This is the first in Stephanie Burgis’s Queen of Villainy series and follows Saskia, the titular witch queen and her mysterious wizard librarian who is more than he seems. This book had everything I could have wanted and I just had such a good time reading it and it left me squealing with delight on several occasions!

Saskia is new to the throne of Kitvaria after she overthrew her awful uncle who murdered her parents and made her out to be some sort of monster thanks to her unasked for, yet very powerful magic. She’s busy working on her magical experiments and desperately needs her library of magic texts organized by someone competent. This is a lucky thing for the Archduke Felix of Estarion who has fled from his abusive and likely murderous father-in-law who had been acting as his regent since his parents died many years before. Felix shows up planning to ask for sanctuary but is instead immediately hired to be the librarian because Saskia assumes he’s a dark wizard who was supposed to show up for an interview. ‘Fabian’ as he decides to be called is determined to not be found out and works himself to the bone to please Saskia and keep the staff from growing suspicious. As the two spend more and more time together they begin to form an inevitable attraction, which is a delicious slow burn filled with yearning and some seriously intense casual interactions. I won’t spoil any major plot points because that takes away all the fun!

Saskia and Felix are wonderful main characters on so many levels even aside from the romantic aspect of things. They have complicated and troubled pasts they are both working to overcome in somewhat different ways. Felix has run from his while Saskia is done running and has faced it head on by taking the Kitvarian throne. She’s also working to create a kingdom that welcomes the non-human inhabitants just as equally as it does the human, which honors both her mother’s scholarly legacy and her own dearest supporters who now serve her. I also enjoyed both characters working through their past relationships though their situations are also quite different. 

Wooing the Witch Queen was, simply put, a pleasure to read. It’s a slow burn and doesn’t get explicit with the spice, but there’s plenty of tantalizing moments between Saskia and Felix. The minor characters add a ton to the story that help make even this short novel feel like it has nice depth. The worldbuilding is enough to make political concerns, alliances, and enemies feel important, but it’s not particularly deep. I expect the next books in the trilogy will broaden the readers’ horizons both literally and figuratively, but ultimately these are romance books so I’m not expecting too much. I look forward to the next installment which will follow the fae queen, Lorelai – I think her book will be rather chaotic and fun!