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A very interesting take on part of the King Arthur legend. If you follow my reviews, it will seem like a broken record how often I mention loving retellings, especially queer ones. I also happen to be a fan of Griffith so this was a must read for me. Griffith writes stories that are compelling, with memorable characters (Aud, I still miss you), so I’m always interested to see what she will write about next. While I have to be honest that I didn’t love this read, I still really appreciated it and found that it stuck with me and I kept thinking about it long after I finished reading it last week.

This is a novella staring a woman who wants to be “a knight of the round table� so she dresses herself as a man and goes off to prove that she belongs. While this is novella length, I thought pace wise it worked very well. It did not seem rushed and it felt like Griffith got to really pack a lot into a shorter amount of pages. I do want to mention that this is a bit of a cerebral read. What I mean by that is it’s the kind of read you want to take your time with since there is a lot packed into the words that Griffith chose to write with. This is not a light quick read that you want to fly through as you will miss too much. I actually think this is one of those rare times that this might be even better on audio because I believe hearing the words could be pretty magical.

Because this is a novella, I don’t want to go into too much and give any spoilers away by accident. I will say that this made me more interested in a subject that I thought I knew pretty well already. The end notes about the histories and different versions were amazing (I hope everyone reads that part) and the way Griffith wove her story using the different legends, is really impressive. For the romance fans out there this does have a sapphic romance but it is not a main storyline of the book. I thought the way Griffith added queer characters into this tale was well done and seemed realistic since you know there were queer people in the middle ages. I would recommend this to fans of Griffith, and people looking to read a queer and more cerebral retelling of the middle period of the Arthur legend.

A copy was given to me for a review.