Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted over at Wishful Endings to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about but haven’t yet read. Most of the time they’re books that have yet to be released, but not always. It’s based on the Waiting on Wednesday meme, which was originally hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.
This week my Can’t-Wait-For Book is Witch King by Martha Wells!
Genres: Fantasy
Published on: 30th May 2023
Goodreads
Martha Wells, the New York Times bestselling author of the Murderbot series, pens a major fantasy novel in Witch King.
Kai-Enna is the Witch King, though he hasn’t always been, and he hasn’t even always been Kai-Enna!
After being murdered, his consciousness dormant and unaware of the passing of time while confined in an elaborate water trap, Kai wakes to find a lesser mage attempting to harness Kai’s magic to his own advantage. That was never going to go well.
But why was Kai imprisoned in the first place? What has changed in the world since his assassination? And why does the Rising World Coalition appear to be growing in influence?
Kai will need to pull his allies close and draw on all his pain magic if he is to answer even the least of these questions.
He’s not going to like the answers.
Witch King is a rousing tale of power and friendship, of trust and betrayal, and of the families we choose.
The (gorgeous!) cover was just revealed today, so I’m sure absolutely everyone is featuring it for today’s Can’t Wait Wednesday… But #sorrynotsorry, Wells is one of my favourite authors and I’ve been pining for Witch King since the publishing deal was announced, so hells yes, I’m featuring it!
Murderbot is marvellous – let no one suggest otherwise – but I fell in love with Wells’ fantasy long before Murderbot was on the scene (if you haven’t read the Raksura series, it’s about matriarchal dragon-shifter bee-people in a world with no humans and YOU SHOULD READ IT) so I was BEYOND excited when it was announced that she was writing a new fantasy novel after so many years of sci-fi! FANTASY FTW, PLEASE AND THANK YOU!
But for the longest time, we didn’t know anything about it!!! Every month, I came back and scoured the internet, hoping for some kind of announcement, for Wells to have said something in an interview, maybe – but nope. Nada. Nothing. No idea what the book was going to be about. Except, presumably, some kind of Witch King???
I spotted a blurb on the publisher’s website just a few weeks ago – not the one we have now, the first one was much shorter! – and then the ebook was available for preorder – and now a cover! With a proper blurb! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Wells’ imagination is incredible, so I’m not surprised Witch King sounds completely different from anything I daydreamed it might be. I mean – our MC is deceased! Tied to a water-trap! A disembodied consciousness! WHAT??? How does a disembodied consciousness gather his allies??? Or use pain magic, for that matter??? WHAT IS THE RISING WORLD COALITION AND WHY IS IT A PROBLEM??? And how on Earth am I supposed to wait so long to find out?!
May can’t get here soon enough!
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