I really enjoyed McCoy's Queen of Roses, so I decided to buy her Lord Alchemist Duology as well. Herb-Witch turned out to be incredibly difficult to get into, although I did eventually find my footing in this new world. I became invested in the characters...and then the ending happened. To say it was disappointing is putting it mildly. I'll have to read Book 2 to be sure, but so far I'd have to say that this book is not for romance fans, despite the "romance" tag I've seen applied to it.

Iathor, the Lord Alchemist, first meets Kessa Herbsman in a prison cell. She has been accused of disminding a moneylender with one of her potions. Iathor uses a truth potion on her and realizes that she is an immune, someone on whom most potions have little or no effect. There are only two known immunes at the moment: Iathor (the Lord Alchemist is required to be immune) and his heir and brother, Iasen. Iathor has been searching for an immune woman for decades, because he must either marry an immune woman or take a dramswife, a woman who has drunk the dramsman's draught in order to make her completely loyal to him. The thought of a wife who has no choice but to be by his side horrifies him.

Ugly, half-barbarian Kessa never expected to receive a marriage proposal from anyone, much less the Lord Alchemist, but she's not about to fall gratefully into his arms. She has no idea what it means to be immune or how rare it is. All she wants is to take care of her sickly foster sister and to be left alone. Iathor attempts to woo Kessa by feeding her, taking care of her when she's ill or in pain, and generally making her life easier. Even if she decides not to be his wife, he'd at least like to make her his student.

Here's how I thought the story would go: Kessa would agree to become Iathor's student. She'd gradually make friends with Nicia, another trainee. She'd work with Iathor to stop the activities of the gray watch and discover who had dosed the moneylender prior to her meeting with him. She'd eventually come to trust Iathor with her secrets and her family, and, finally, she'd agreed to marry him. What could have just been a marriage of convenience would end up being a love match. Book 2 would feature Kessa trying to adjust to life among the wealthy and titled, Iathor adjusting to Kessa's family, and both of them facing Iasen's hatred of Kessa's half-barbarian heritage.

Some things went the way I thought they would. Others, not so much.

At first, I was on Kessa's side. Iathor seemed to accept it as a given that Kessa would agree to marry him. Never mind that this would turn her world upside down. Never mind that her immunity meant that the children he wanted her to bear might kill her. I wasn't entirely sure about how immunity worked – a potion designed to heal Kessa's arm worked, for instance, but most pain-relievers didn't. At the very least, giving birth would be awful. What if there were complications during her pregnancy, and her immunity prevented potions from helping her?

Iathor's accommodating attitude and Kessa's intense prickliness and bucket-loads of paranoia eventually put me more on Iathor's side. She snarled at him at every opportunity, despite the fact that he did almost nothing to deserve it. It was very difficult to like her, and I began to wish that Laita, Kessa's foster sister, was the immune main character instead. Kessa's resistance to Iathor dragged on an on, while the much more practical, mercenary, and charming Laita would have seen an opportunity for her and her family to move up in the world and would have cheerfully grabbed it.

I could imagine Iathor marrying Laita for political reasons and the immune children she might give him, Laita marrying him for his political power and money, and their relationship either blossoming into love or not. Either way, it would have felt better than what Kessa did at the end of this book. Kessa told Nicia not to feign immunity because it would be cruel to Iathor, but I felt that what she did was almost as cruel. Not to mention possibly unnecessary, if she had only unbent enough to finally trust Iathor even a little.

McCoy went way, way overboard with Kessa, both in terms of her prickliness towards Iathor and her ugliness. Readers were reminded over and over again that Kessa's eyes were hideous – the color of dog-vomit, or rotting herbs, or dead leaves. She hid them both because she was self-conscious about them about them and because the full force of her gaze could be effective as a weapon. The bit that really got me was that her own foster siblings flinched away from her gaze. Unless her eyes were magically repellent, which I don't think they were, this was too much.

I had a lot of issues with McCoy's writing. I had to go back and reread certain earlier parts of the book several times because details necessary for understanding those bits weren't revealed until much later. The rhythm of characters' speech and thoughts (especially Kessa's) sometimes made things harder to follow than they should have been. I spent the first quarter of the book trying to find my footing and didn't truly feel sure about my knowledge of the world until I was halfway through.

In general, I felt that the story would have been much improved had an editor gone through and tightened certain parts up and placed some of the world explanations earlier in the book. Considering how much fun I had with Queen of Roses, I had expected to love this book. While I liked several of the characters and their interactions, enjoyed Kessa's alchemy training, and wanted to see how and whether Iathor could win Kessa over, adjusting to this world took more work than it should have, and the ending wasn't worth it. If I didn't already own Book 2, I don't know that I could bring myself to buy it. However, since I do own it, I'll read it and see if the duology as a whole is worth the trouble, even if this first book was a disappointment.

Extras:

A combined cast list and glossary is included at the end of the book. In my opinion, the glossary should have been listed at the beginning. It might have made the first quarter of the book less confusing.

 

(Original review, with read-alikes, posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

Everywhere I've looked, this book is tagged as "fantasy" and "romance." At best, this is fantasy with romantic aspects, although the ending may have stomped even that to pieces. I'm so disappointed right now. I'm going to have to sit and think for a while before I can write my review. I'm not even sure what rating I'm going to go with.

 

I bought both books in the duology at the same time - a good thing, I guess, since this isn't a self-contained story. I hope that Book 2 manages to be more satisfying, both in terms of the story and the romance (?).

There was this one story I read in one of my German classes. I thought I'd try to save time by just reading it straight through without looking up any words I didn't know. Maybe I could figure out their meaning from the context. My reading experience went something like this:

 

"There's a death! A corpse? Wait, that guy earlier was a priest? What???" ::flips back a few pages to reread stuff that now makes a tiny bit more sense::

 

Reading this feels much the same way. Queen of Roses had similar problems, but they weren't as pronounced, I think because there wasn't as much in the way of unfamiliar terminology (ETA: and it worked better with the mystery aspects?). I keep finding out the meaning of words well past the point when I first needed those meanings. Then I either have to flip back to reread bits, which I hate doing in e-books, or keep going.

 

For example, I just figured out that the gray watch group mentioned 20 or so pages earlier had actually been threatening Kessa, the herb-witch main character, with serious property damage. I also just realized that a "dramsman" is essentially a slave, someone made utterly loyal via a loyalty potion. These people have been mentioned all over the place, and I had thought it was a generic term for "worker" up until now.

This book- if I had two words to describe it- oh hell two phrases: interesting concept with huge doses of frustrating frustrating!

So, Kessa and Iathor.
Yeah.

Kessa is a low class gutter raised "herb witch". She has a chip on her shoulder approximately the size of the universe. She's ugly and has vomit spit dog shit eyes I tell you! I probably shouldn't tell you that though because you will be reading that phrase and variations of about a billion times to describe her eyes and also everyone's reactions to her barbarian eyes. That's- frustrating to me. I GET IT. She has ugly eyes and she's ugly. So a half breed urchin raised to run petty crimes for her guardians is targeted by the esteemed and noble blooded Lord Alchemist himself- because she's immune to alchemy.

Iachor- its hard to get a sense of him even since he's just wincing and reacting to Kessa the entire book. He's a kind enough man although according to Kessa's thoughts he's high handed, irritating, arrogant etc. I didn't find him to really be that way at all which just gives you another hint to how completely maladjusted Kessa is. Iathor is at least likable if practical in his approach to Kessa. His hugest flaw is totally coddling his clearly good for nothing brother, Iasen.

There is little reason to like Kessa. Sympathize a bit, yes! But all she does is gripe about the fact that Iathor wants to marry her..to own her she feels. She worries about being a brood mare etc. Understandable, yes, but as I say often enough that doesn't make it enjoyable to read about. I guess my frustration stems from the repetition.

Redeeming factors:
Some of the character interactions are charming.
Her writing is very good- its just that the story frustrates.
The cover- yeah I like the cover! So sue me- anyway it looks like watercolor work and it's pretty.


I'm already reading the second book. I have reasons for sure- while I didn't LOVE this book- I needed some answers. Who the hell are the Shadowmasters and Guild? And it is very obvious who the criminal really is in book one and I for one would at least like to see them get the justice they deserve. Also - since the book ended the way it did, well I want to see the development of that thing. I in fact do not understand why this was broken up into two books- but fair enough.

This by the way ISN'T romantic. It's more fantasy- and heavily laced with very earthy and repugnant ideas of alchemy and herb witchery. For those that are easily disgusted I'd say stay away.