THE GUINEVERE DECEPTION by Kiersten White

Rating: 3.5 / 5

THE GUINEVERE DECEPTION by Kiersten White was one that I hadn’t heard of before it arrived in an Owl Crate box, but I was immediately intrigued by the idea of a retelling of the legend of King Arthur from Guinevere’s perspective. It was also picked for a buddy read on Discord, so I was glad to be able to find a prompt for April to fit it!

THE GUINEVERE DECEPTION follows the perspective of Guinevere. To protect the kingdom, King Arthur defeated dark magic and has now banned all magic from the realm which means that his friend Merlin is banned as well. Merlin has therefore sent Guinevere to protect the king by marrying him to gain access to his world and use her secret magical abilities.

The King and Guinevere are the only ones who know that she isn’t actually Guinevere, though her true identity is not known. The dark magic that had been thought defeated isn’t entirely gone and Guinevere is certain that the danger is real and imminent. Arthur’s knights are powerful , but they have no way of knowing how much danger they are all in.

I was left with some mixed feelings on this book. I was initially very intrigued by Guinevere and her story. The author leaves a lot of questions dangling in front of the reader with the barest of hints of reveals to come. This had me very interested to keep reading and uncovering the secrets, but in the end it left me a bit frustrated as well. This is of course only book one in a series, so I will be curious as to how the questions get answered in future books.

I wasn’t entirely drawn into the relationships, either. There are some strong female friendships which I appreciated and I loved seeing some of the female characters take a strong lead. The relationship between Arthur and Guinevere didn’t entirely hook me in. I also wasn’t too surprised at the reveal of who the bad guy was in the book, though I didn’t know all of the details until they were revealed.

In the end, this was an entertaining read and I will keep an eye out for the next book to see where the story goes from here.

Reading Challenges:

#PopsugarReadingChallenge – a book with a three-word title