The House Witch 2

The House Witch 2
by Delemhach
Recommended Ages: 14+

Finlay Ashowan would just as soon spend his days cooking meals for a castleful of courtiers, but when he requests a week off after a gruelling festival, the king gives him another assignment – intelligencing out a foreign threat in the adjacent city of Austice. He'll have to manage without his powers at a house witch, since his magic is limited to home and hearth. Meanwhile, his romance with the noble Lady Annika Jenoure has reached a tipping point where it will surely either ruin both of them or break their hearts. She has her own covert assignment to deal with, and the pair's adventures take them into some of the most dangerous corners of Austice, all without a moment's rest from court intrigues, delicate diplomacy, marital politics, treasonous plots and most dangerous of all, the food Fin's assistants cook up in the castle kitchen during his vacation.

This second, unimaginatively titled installment in the House Witch trilogy suffers a bit from Middle of a Trilogy Syndrome, leaving an overall sense that it doesn't add much to the series other than connecting the first and third books. It incrementally moves forward with the question of how Fin and Annika can ever work as a couple, and builds ominously to the dreaded arrival of Fin's father in the Daxarian capital without leaving much time for that development to mature. Also, Fin takes some time off from his main calling as the castle's house witch, saving the kingdom in a low-key way by making the royal home as safe and comforting a place as can be, and consequently doesn't have a lot of scope to exercise his impressive and growing powers; everyone in the book, including you, feels impatient for him to return to where he belongs. There's a major theme of things needing to be gotten out of the way before we can address the main business at hand.

However, that impression of being a lightweight but odiously necessary middle part might be somewhat deceptive. There are some significant developments in this book. The hero witch and his kitten familiar discover a new dimension to their relationship, and Kraken applies his covert ops skills on the task at hand more effectively than Fin or even Annika do. The hero couple's romance, and another between Fin's mother and the captain of the royal guard, both come to a highly significant point, as does the jeopardy of Annika having to marry for diplomacy. The queen's perilous pregnancy comes to a climactic crisis, and Fin & Co. deal thoroughly (and entertainingly) with a concern about the kingdom's enemy in a brewing war already having forces hidden around Daxaria.

Yes, there is a The House Witch 3, and I've got it and have started reading it. There's also The Burning Witch, the first novel in a sequel series, and The Princess of Potential, another (but apparently separate) follow-up, all by the same Canadian author. Please observe an Adult Content Advisory for this book.