The Guinevere Deception by Kiersten White

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Title: The Guinevere Deception
Author: Kiersten White
Series: Camelot Rising #1
Published by: Delacorte Press
Release Date: November 5, 2019
Format: Kindle Book, Audiobook
Pages: 352
Genres: Fantasy, Retelling, Young Adult, Mythic Fiction
Source: Libby
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2020 Retellings Reading Challenge
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ B&N ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ iBooks ✩ IndieBound ✩ Book Depository
My rating:

Blurb:

From New York Times bestselling author Kiersten White comes a new fantasy series reimagining the Arthurian legend, set in the magical world of Camelot.

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?

*THE FIRST BOOK IN THE CAMELOT RISING TRILOGY*

My Review:

3.5 stars — I started this one by listening to the audiobook, but it really did not capture my attention in that format.  It wasn’t that the narrator was bad, I thought she was quite good.  But I think there was something about the narrative that just didn’t work for my distracted mind.  So I switched to reading my Kindle copy, and things went much better.

I still found it hard to get sucked in to this one.  There were moments that I absolutely loved!  But there were so many secrets, so much mystery, and from our heroine too…it just had me losing interest instead of drawing me deeper.  I knew this was a series, so I wasn’t surprised that there were still questions unanswered at the end of this one, but I *might* have needed a bit more…  It’s like, part of me is interested in where this series is going, but there’s another part that could totally see forgetting about it and never finishing it and not clamouring for more.

I think another problem for me was that there wasn’t a strong romance component.  Which it doesn’t have to have, by any means…but I wonder if I’d become invested in Guinevere with someone then I’d have been more invested in general.  I had suspicions and reservations about SO MANY characters, and it turns out with good reason (for most of those characters), that in the end I just kept myself apart from it.

The strongest component for me was wholeheartedly the friendships that Guinevere develops with so many strong and different female characters.  And with that, the few twists and turns of diversity that I DIDN’T see coming AT ALL!  I don’t want to give anything away, but there were a few surprises that just absolutely delighted me.  Which is why I will inevitably round up.  Without all of this, I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed this book that much.

One other thing that delighted me was the way that magic was represented, specifically how Guinevere used her magic.  I appreciated that there was a trade off — that using magic wasn’t without consequences for her.  That was fascinating.

SO yeah.  I have suspicions about a few things, but I almost wish I’d gotten a few more hints before the end.  I don’t know what I think about how everything turned out.