Review: The Guinevere Deception

Ｔｉｔｌｅ：The Guinevere Deception

Ａｕｔｈｏｒ：Kiersten White

Ｓｅｒｉｅｓ：Book 1

Ｒａｔｉｎｇ：★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

＊Ｎｏｔｅ：I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

There was nothing in the world as magical and terrifying as a girl.

Princess Guinevere has come to Camelot to wed a stranger: the charismatic King Arthur. With magic clawing at the kingdom’s borders, the great wizard Merlin conjured a solution–send in Guinevere to be Arthur’s wife . . . and his protector from those who want to see the young king’s idyllic city fail. The catch? Guinevere’s real name–and her true identity–is a secret. She is a changeling, a girl who has given up everything to protect Camelot.

To keep Arthur safe, Guinevere must navigate a court in which the old–including Arthur’s own family–demand things continue as they have been, and the new–those drawn by the dream of Camelot–fight for a better way to live. And always, in the green hearts of forests and the black depths of lakes, magic lies in wait to reclaim the land. Arthur’s knights believe they are strong enough to face any threat, but Guinevere knows it will take more than swords to keep Camelot free.

Deadly jousts, duplicitous knights, and forbidden romances are nothing compared to the greatest threat of all: the girl with the long black hair, riding on horseback through the dark woods toward Arthur. Because when your whole existence is a lie, how can you trust even yourself?

❝ “Women are strongest when bearing one another’s pain. We each take a little on ourselves. No one dies, and we all heal together.” ❞

Kiersten White is one of my all-time favorite authors and I especially loved her Vlad the Impaler retelling, And I Darken, so when I heard about her new series based on Arthurian legend, I was super excited (especially when I was fortunate enough to receive an arc). However, with that said I did feel like this one progresses slower than her other books.

In the Guinevere Deception, our main character Guinevere is an imposter sent by Merlin to protect Arthur. While Arthur is in on the plan, he is still in the dark in a way because he knows very little about his new bride. Neither he nor Guinevere knows what the threat is, so they find themselves seeing enemies everywhere.

Guinevere’s character was very mysterious between her paralyzing fear of water and the gaps in her memories. I loved how she saw wonder everywhere and how she fell in love with Arthur as a king and leader. I think her admiration for him rather than a strictly romantic bond gave the story an interesting twist (although–-fans of romance–don’t worry, there’s romance too!) I think, however, that part of the reason for why the story felt so slow was that we had so many questions about Guinevere and almost none of the big ones were answered in this book.

❝ There was good, and there was evil, but there was so much space between the two. ❞

Arthur was another great character. He could feel a little distant at times, especially when he was in “king mode”, but there were also times with Guinevere where he could relax and act like the young man he was. I loved those moments!

There are so many other characters that I would want to talk about, so I’ll just say that Kiersten did a great job of mixing elements of Arthurian legends along with her own ideas. When it comes to retellings, I think it can be boring if the retelling is too much like the original. The Guinevere Deception keeps the most iconic parts of the legends (sometimes bending them when it comes to the gender or the relationship between certain characters), but the plot is fresh and wholly her own. She also explains a good deal of history throughout the story so readers that are not very familiar with Arthurian legend will not have a hard time keeping up.

I think that while the Guinevere Deception may have a few bumps, it’s a good start to a magical and thrilling new series. Definitely do yourself a favor and check it out!