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I received an ARC of this book as a bookseller through Edelweiss - and I could not be more thankful for it. The Shepherd King duology is a bestseller in the bookstore I manage, and I’ve now read it 3 times. I knew going into this book that I love Rachel Gillig’s writing style, and so I had high expectations. And boy, did she truly knock it out of the park.

The Knight and the Moth is distinctly different than One Dark Window/Two Twisted Crowns. That said, Gillig’s lyrical prose is still a defining feature, and I could not get enough of it. What truly made this story for me was the characters - Six, Rory, the gargoyle, Maude, Benji. There’s such a wonderful balance of heartwarming and heartbreaking.

I’d liken this to T. Kingfisher’s Nettle and Bone in tone - you’ve got noble (or not-so-noble) knights, strange old gods, and a talking gargoyle that cuts the tension at just the right moments. Given that the book doesn’t release for a few more months, I won’t go into details of plot and such, but this was the first book in awhile that I absolutely devoured and felt absolutely giddy reading. The romance is steamier than One Dark Window, but I’d still classify this as a fantasy forward story with a romance subplot.

And there’s a lovely nod to Legolas and Gimli’s “toss me� moment from The Two Towers. Truly, chefs kiss. Or as I’m sure the gargoyle would say, “chef’s kids.�