The Guinevere Deception by Kiersten White

Information

Goodreads: The Guinevere Deception
Series: Camelot Rising #1
Source: Library
Published: November 5, 2019

Official Summary

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?

Review

The Guinevere Deception is an imaginative retelling that weaves together pieces of Arthurian legend (itself often wildly but beautifully inconsistent) to create a story about a girl who needs to find herself while protecting her new home of Camelot.  While overall I think the story is strong and well-crafted and will be satisfying to a large number of readers, personally I was not always gripped and would have liked a bit more development of the plot.

Though there are a few aspects of the book I believe were intended to be plot twists, most of it was predictable—starting with the opening of the book where there is some “secret” the protagonist holds…which in this case is mentioned on the book jacket summary.  There is also a mysterious Guinevere herself must solve, and it’s also laughable how obvious it is she is following the wrong threads and clues.  I’m not generally one to read mainly for suspense or surprise, but it was a bit wearying to feel the character was wasting her time—and to feel I was, as well, as I had to plod through the requisite pages until she finally discovered how wrong she was and started doing something more useful.  Interestingly, the elements from Arthurian legend incorporated into the plot did not feel as blandly predictable, even though I was aware where certain scenes must be heading.

Guinevere as a character is interesting, however, and it was fun to read about her.  She is someone who is not necessarily drawn in detail in a lot of Arthurian source material, which can give writers some room to play.  White has a created a character who is both powerful and vulnerable, smart but often in the dark, important but clearly still very young.  Sometimes in YA, while the characters are doing great deeds, it’s hard to remember they’re teens; I generally remembered that Guinevere was, even as she was impressing me with her talents.

I also enjoyed the characterization of most of the other players in the novel and had fun picking out where White was inspired by her sources.  In addition to the obvious characters like Mordred and Merlin, White adds ones like Tristan and Isolde and Percival and Blancheflour, who might be less familiar to some readers.  Personally, I’ve always been interested in Gawain, so it would have been fun to see him get a larger role, as well, but that’s not actually a flaw of the book.

The main premise of the new vs. the old, magic vs. order, nature vs. peace, etc. is also interesting and nuanced, and I think there’s a lot of room for this to grow in the following books.  In some sense, The Guinevere Deception has the tiniest feel of The Lord of the Rings, as characters ponder whether it’s time for dangerous magic to leave and for a world ordered by men to take over.  There’s also general medieval influence here, of course, in the sense that magic and folklore beliefs coexisted with Christianity, sometimes openly and sometimes secretly, for quite a while in the Middle Ages.

The Guinevere Deception is a strong fantasy with strong female characters that will likely please many readers. I enjoyed it myself; I just wasn’t gripped enough to want to continue reading the series.