A fresh, often lovely, not entirely gratifying take on Arthurian legend.
What if Percival, one of the Knights of the Round Table, was queer?
As a young girl, the heroine of this novella lives alone with her mother, isolated from people but familiar with every plant and beast in the valley that is her home. Sometimes her mother calls her a gift. Other days, her mother says her daughter is payment for the abuse she endured. After a chance encounter gives her a taste of battle and a glimpse of the outside world, the girl decides to make her way to the court of Arturus. Before she sets out, she asks her mother for a true name, and her mother calls her Bêr-hyddur, “spear enduring”—Peretur. Disguised as a young man, Peretur protects villages from bandits, defeats rebel knights, seduces a barmaid, and brings the Grail to her king. Griffith mines the matter of Britain and Celtic mythology while, at the same time, turning tropes upside down and subverting expectations. Arturus, for example, is a principled ruler but also a man in thrall to his otherworldly sword. Nimuë—who becomes Peretur’s lover and ally—imprisons Myrddyn (elsewhere known as Merlin), not to steal his magic but to stop him from controlling hers. Turning the knight who finds the Grail into a young woman is obviously an innovation, but Griffith also transforms the very nature of the Grail quest. Peretur knows exactly where the Grail is as soon as she understands what the Grail is. And Griffith is participating in a trend toward rediscovering diversity in the pre-modern world in a way that feels entirely organic. Peretur’s journey to prove herself worthy of joining Arturus’ companions moves along briskly without feeling rushed. Her Grail quest is her final test, but it feels like the beginning of a new narrative that ends before it begins. Readers interested in the fate of Arturus’ kingdom will be wholly disappointed. Readers invested in Peretur and Nimuë will get the equivalent of a happily-ever-after that feels more like an abrupt dismissal than a satisfying ending.
A fresh, often lovely, not entirely gratifying take on Arthurian legend.Pub Date: April 19, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-81932-1
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Tordotcom
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2022
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.
Using mystery and romance elements in a nonlinear narrative, SenLinYu’s debut is a doorstopper of a fantasy that follows a woman with missing memories as she navigates through a war-torn realm in search of herself.
Helena Marino is a talented young healer living in Paladia—the “Shining City”—who has been thrust into a brutal war against an all-powerful necromancer and his army of Undying, loyal henchmen with immortal bodies, and necrothralls, reanimated automatons. When Helena is awakened from stasis, a prisoner of the necromancer’s forces, she has no idea how long she has been incarcerated—or the status of the war. She soon finds herself a personal prisoner of Kaine Ferron, the High Necromancer’s “monster” psychopath who has sadistically killed hundreds for his master. Ordered to recover Helena’s buried memories by any means necessary, the two polar opposites—Helena and Kaine, healer and killer—end up discovering much more as they begin to understand each other through shared trauma. While necromancy is an oft-trod subject in fantasy novels, the author gives it a fresh feel—in large part because of their superb worldbuilding coupled with unforgettable imagery throughout: “[The necromancer] lay reclined upon a throne of bodies. Necrothralls, contorted and twisted together, their limbs transmuted and fused into a chair, moving in synchrony, rising and falling as they breathed in tandem, squeezing and releasing around him…[He] extended his decrepit right hand, overlarge with fingers jointed like spider legs.” Another noteworthy element is the complex dynamic between Helena and Kaine. To say that these two characters shared the gamut of intense emotions would be a vast understatement. Readers will come for the fantasy and stay for the romance.
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9780593972700
Page Count: 1040
Publisher: Del Rey
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.
A French art historian’s English-language fiction debut combines the story of a loving relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter with an enlightening discussion of art.
One day, when 10-year-old Mona removes the necklace given to her by her now-dead grandmother, she experiences a frightening, hour-long bout of blindness. Her parents take her to the doctor, who gives her a variety of tests and also advises that she see a psychiatrist. Her grandfather Henry tells her parents that he will take care of that assignment, but instead, he takes Mona on weekly visits to either the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, or the Centre Pompidou, where each week they study a single work of art, gazing at it deeply and then discussing its impact and history and the biography of its maker. For the reader’s benefit, Schlesser also describes each of the works in scrupulous detail. As the year goes on, Mona faces the usual challenges of elementary school life and the experiences of being an only child, and slowly begins to understand the causes of her temporary blindness. Primarily an amble through a few dozen of Schlesser’s favorite works of art—some well known and others less so, from Botticelli and da Vinci through Basquiat and Bourgeois—the novel would probably benefit from being read at a leisurely pace. While the dialogue between Henry and the preternaturally patient and precocious Mona sometimes strains credulity, readers who don’t have easy access to the museums of Paris may enjoy this vicarious trip in the company of a guide who focuses equally on that which can be seen and the context that can’t be. Come for the novel, stay for the introductory art history course.
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9798889661115
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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