Book Review: The Guinevere Deception by Kiersten White

The Guinevere Deception (Camelot Rising #1) by Kiersten White

Pages: 352
Publish date: November 5th, 2019
Publisher: Penguin – Bantam Juvenile US
ISBN: 9780593123836
Purchase: Book Depository – Amazon UK – Amazon US – Amazon AU – QBD

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 Guinevere Deception:

Over the past few years, I’ve fallen in love with Kiersten White’s historical fiction and retellings. So when I heard that she would be doing an Arthurian retelling, I knew that I needed to read it. And I’m so glad that I did because The Guinevere Deception was fantastic.

The Guinevere Deception follows Guinevere as she arrives in Camelot to start her life as Arthur’s wife and Queen. But everything isn’t always what it seems. Guinevere isn’t just Arthurs’s wife, but now also his protector. Her real identity is a secret, and she has to navigate court intrigue and all the attempts to save the city that many want to see fall. And it isn’t just humans that want Camelot, but magic as well. But what started as a job, might turn into something much more and Guinevere might end up doing just about everything to save Arthur and Camelot.

Tobias Tullius

Guinevere was a really interesting protagonist and I loved her. For most of The Guinevere Deception, the reader is in the dark on a lot of things, including who Guinevere really is. And that is what made her character so intriguing. She was an unreliable narrator and I love seeing that. Because it gets the reader really think. We don’t know if the person that she is showing is anything like her true self. But as the novel goes on, the reader is slowly able to see who Guinevere truly is. I loved her feistiness and her willingness to protect Arthur and those she grew to love in Camelot. I really enjoyed getting to know all the sides of Guinevere and I can’t wait to see where her character arc is taken.

Arthur was also an intriguing character. For a lot of the book, I felt very distant from him and that made it very hard to connect with him. But as The Guinevere Deception went on, his characterisation really shone through. And there were reasons for his distance. The reader just doesn’t get to know them for some time. Like Guinevere, I can’t wait to see how the next books go for Arthur, I really think that the reader will get to know him a lot more by then.

The romance in The Guinevere Deception had a lot of ups and downs. From the start, the reader knows that both Guinevere and Arthur and married for the protection of Camelot. But as the novel goes, we really get to see them both get to know one another and understand each other. It’s a slow burn kind of romance – a real slow burn. But I also really enjoyed that. It was a real focus on cementing the story and the characters as their own.

Paweł Furman

I think one of the hardest things about The Guinevere Deception, for me, was distancing everything else I know about Guinevere, Arthur, Merlin, and Camelot. I’m a massive fan of the ‘Merlin’ TV series and it took some will and power for me not to imagine them as these characters. But once I was able to do that, I enjoyed the book even more.

If you know anything about Camelot and the Knights of the Round table – you know that there is a lot of characters. And the fact that Kiersten White still had most of them was awesome. I don’t want to spoil too much, but it was a great feeling having prior knowledge of characters and then being right. I can’t wait to see how White takes this in the following novels, it’s going to be really interesting that is for sure.

There is a lot to be said about the plot of The Guinevere Deception. While I really enjoyed it, I can understand that some readers may find it long. But I love court intrigue, it’s one of my favourite things in fantasy novels. I find it so fascinating and always adds another dimension to the novel for me. While the novel was filled with court intrigue, it’s also filled with magic.

I really enjoyed how magic was written and explored in The Guinevere Deception. One of my favourite things about novels that deal with magic. It’s the different ways that magic is represented and used. This is another thing that I cannot wait to see more of as the series go on. Joanna Kosinska

Overall, I loved falling into the world of Kings and Queens. Of Knights and Magic. Of Camelot and King Arthur. It’s something that has always caught my attention, and The Guinevere Deception by Kiersten White is such an interesting retelling that I can’t wait to read more. It’s a magical journey that leaves the reader hanging with so many questions but also wants them begging for more. I loved Guinevere and Arthur and I can’t wait to see where their stories go. Full of court intrigue, magic, and unreliable characters, The Guinevere Deception is a series to watch out for, because you never know what is going to happen next.

Have you read The Guinevere Deception? What did you think of it? Are you planning on reading it any time soon? Have you read any other Kiersten White novels? Let’s Chat!