This was a charming little story about a wicked witch who refused to admit she did anything nice…for anyone, including her beloved adopted son.

Once upon a time…Gretsella lived in her cozy cottage deep in the woods and did a brisk little business in herbs and tinctures, all at a reasonable price; for which she was known as the Witch With The Reasonable Prices. Life was good and reasonable until the day she returned home to find an abandoned baby on her doorstep.  And it was clearly intentional since the baby was accompanied by a note to her. Against her will, she decided to keep the baby if only to be contrary to the King's Guard who showed up asking questions.  Because, of course, the baby was a future king. 

Gretsella is determined to keep her darling boy Bradley at home; working as a hairdresser, playing football on the weekends, and enjoying the attentions of the local farmboys.  But children have an annoying way of developing their own ideas; although it didn't help when the dratted woodland creatures kept addressing him as King and Your Majesty and other things better not mentioned.  She was doing a pretty good job at keeping them away from Bradley but the darn mice slipped through and before you knew it, there were soldiers bowing and scraping to him and turning his head.  Despite her best motherly advice to stay home and ignore all the fuss, Bradley left for the capital because he thought he had to go be King.

Gretsella sulked for a while; hoping he would figure out for himself that he belonged at home.  Now the thing to know about Bradley was that he received blessings from the witches of Gretsella's coven; he was beautiful, nice, polite and had a mean right-hook.  No one could help but love and admire him; and he was just so darn polite. Unfortunately, his niceness wasn't necessarily a benefit when it came to ruling and politics.  When he cancelled all taxes, he was bewildered when there was no money to pay for anything.  Even the poor people were angry with him as they had more money than they knew what to do with. (yeah, like that would really happen…) Finally, he felt forced to call his mother and ask her to help.  Gretsella knew just exactly what she had to do: convince Bradley to leave off being King; and if that didn't work, she'd see what she could do about staging a coup…

Once in the palace, Gretsella set about learning all she could about everyone there; through gossip, of course.  Being an experienced wicked witch, she easily saw through the lies, the pandering, and the flattery to find the people who were genuinely honest and good.  And being such an experienced wicked witch, she was able to easily manipulate people and events to her satisfaction. But she may have underestimated the ambition and skill of a certain young witch who refused to admit she was a witch.  She wasn't trained, of course, but had a certain natural talent.  Gretsella used her to set-up Bradley to be deposed but even Gretsella wasn't expecting…Democracy.

This was delightfully amusing both in the content and also in the book's format.  The chapter headings were funny and the chapters were interspersed with brief digressions, also very funny.  Gretsella's overweening superiority was funny but also well-deserved.  The supporting characters were very likeable. There was the Knight who was attracted to Bradley, the stable master who was the most honest man in the kingdom, the Duchess who managed the household, and the Jester who was really a witch who refused to admit she was a witch. I liked this very much and totally recommend it.  ~~  Catherine Book

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