EVERYTHING IS AS IT SHOULD BE IN CAMELOT: King Arthur is expanding his kingdom’s influence with Queen Guinevere at his side. Yet every night, dreams of darkness and unknowable power plague her.
Guinevere might have accepted her role, but she still cannot find a place for herself in all of it. The closer she gets to Brangien, pining for her lost love Isolde, Lancelot, fighting to prove her worth as Queen’s knight, and Arthur, everything to everyone and thus never quite enough for Guinevere–the more she realizes how empty she is. She has no sense of who she truly was before she was Guinevere. The more she tries to claim herself as queen, the more she wonders if Mordred was right: she doesn’t belong. She never will.
When a rescue goes awry and results in the death of something precious, a devastated Guinevere returns to Camelot to find the greatest threat yet has arrived. Not in the form of the Dark Queen or an invading army, but in the form of the real Guinevere’s younger sister. Is her deception at an end? And who is she really deceiving–Camelot, or herself?
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“The constant dissonance of being both queen and witch, Guinevere and not-Guinevere, was disorienting. It would be so much simpler to be just one thing.”
We are BACK in Camelot! Dare I say, it is looking better than ever. It could be because of the addition of Sir Lancelot, could be the borderline dirty dreams Guinevere keeps having of Mordred (yes girl, get it), or it could be that there is danger on the horizon due to the big bad having been resurrected at the end of Camelot Rising #1. Any of those are valid.
I loved that Guinevere got to have her own quest this time around. All of her choices are difficult, and unlike Merlin she doesn’t have the foresight to know if what she is doing will eventually damage or help humanity. It is her constant struggle, apart from not really knowing who she is or where she belongs. She wants to belong in Camelot, to fight the good fight, even though her heart is calling her to the forest, the chaos, Mordred…
I’m just going to outright say it–I am team Mordred and not Team Arthur. I just can’t buy into the Guinevere/Arthur pairing. He is so vanilla, and she is fire. He treats her like a friend, like a business partner, and not a lover or someone he has any romantic feelings towards. Even their “romantic” interactions felt awkward.
Aside from the little romance we get with Guinevere, there is a lot more of Tristan and Isolde and Brangien. We get their full story with new developments! I really enjoyed that entire side of the story–I also liked how Kiersten White structured the stories inside the book–kind of like real life fairytales inside the book with their own twists that shed light into different aspects of Arthurian legends (specially when it comes to the woman’s POV versus the male). It gave them a more magical feel than just the characters discussing among themselves what happened. We get a lot of revelations, some more surprising than others, but still I can’t wait for the next book because I NEED ANSWERS.
The ending left us in this sort of cliffhanger, yearning for answers. The first book in the series started off slow, but The Camelot Betrayal lit a fire to the story. I cannot wait for the sequel (and the probably gorgeous cover that will come along with it).
PS; I was provided a review copy in exchange for an honest review. Thanks go to the publisher!
For the Sake of Reading 