The Foxglove King by Hannah Whitten
The Foxglove King is a fantasy novel set in sort-of medieval times, but with magic things. The main (perhaps only) magic system is around death, called 'Mortem'. There is an underground market of people who run and sell poison. People take small doses of poison, which can get them high. Or it can prolong their life. Basically they walk the edge of death and it allows them to live longer lives.
Some people can wield Mortem (death magic), and our main character Lore is one of them. Lore is part of a poison running crew.
The storytelling is pretty good. The development of the fantasy world is very good. The characters are interesting and well-developed. I'm kind of a fan. The writing style isn't always my favorite, though. There's nothing wrong with it, persay. It's just a taste thing that I don't know how to describe. Like, I like it but I wasn't going to call it one of my favorites because it just didn't have that special sauce that feels like it's made just for me.
And THEN, it turns into romance. I didn't know it was going to be romance when I checked it out. The library website had recommended it to me, the description sounded good, so I had placed it on hold and picked it up a week thereafter. It was about 80 pages in when the romance began.
And, well, I think it's a good book. The romance was born from the plot. The story seems to genuinely and deeply care about it's plot, about it's magic system, and the romance comes from these things. I think it's very well done. It is still not my taste. I just got bored as Lore and her surely-soon-to-be-lover were getting to know eachother. Nothing was bad about it. It just wasn't for me. I gave up on reading it after skimmming about 10-15 pages. I clearly had lost interest. So I can't speak for the entire book, but if this is your kind of genre, I'd definitely recommend checking it out.
This is in stark contrast to A Court of Thorns and Roses, which I think was a terrible book, with bad character development, a lack of interest in the plot and magical systems, romance that feels forced and not meaningfully connected to the rest of the storyline. I got through 220 pages of it. My nephew later told me the rest of the plot of Court...Roses and I'm so glad I didn't finish it. It just sounded so freaking stupid. But I hear a lot of people really love this book, so idunno, to each their own. But if you're considering Court...Roses, well, I'd really recommend Foxglove King instead.