White, Kiersten. The Guinevere Deception. Delacorte Press, 2019. The Camelot Rising Trilogy 1. 339 pages. Hardcover: $18.99, ISBN: 9780525581673. Paperback: $10.99, ISBN: 9780525581703.
- - -. The Camelot Betrayal. Delacorte Press, 2020. The Camelot Rising Trilogy 2. 370 pages. Hardcover: $18.99, ISBN: 9780525581710.
Guinevere is 16 years old when she marries Arthur, two years
her senior. Though they have never met, the king welcomes her with open arms
while the people of Camelot look on and cheer. Still, nothing is as it seems.
As soon becomes apparent, theirs is merely a marriage of convenience arranged
by Arthur’s mentor, Merlin, who was banished from Camelot many years before.
Instead of a “real wife,” Guinevere, who has magical powers of her own, was
sent by Merlin to protect the king from his enemies. Instead of saving Arthur, however,
Guinevere is, more often than not, the one needing rescue as she foolishly
follows her misguided impulses into danger in hopes of foiling threats against the
king. Coming to her aid is usually Arthur’s older nephew Mordred, an enigmatic
character for whom the queen finds herself having inexplicable feelings.
In a recent online bookstore event, bestselling author
Kiersten White proclaimed that, because every Arthurian writer adds his or her
own spin to the legend, there no longer is an Arthurian “canon.” Indeed, she
herself takes every opportunity to shatter tradition by introducing unexpected plot
elements. The Tristan-Isolde-Mark love triangle, for instance, is depicted here
as a secret romance between Isolde and her handmaid Brangien. Likewise, Lancelot,
the queen’s knight, is eventually revealed to be a woman, who may or may not be
in love with Guinevere. As for Arthur, before marrying the queen, he had a
short-lived affair with Elaine, the sister of Maleagant, who kidnaps Guinevere
to avenge Elaine’s death during childbirth. The names may be the same, but
White obviously takes pleasure in adding her own special twist to an age-old saga.
Although both books are written in third-person, all action
is seen and interpreted (often wrongly) through Guinevere’s naïve eyes. One
might think the point here is to view the usually male-dominated story through
a strong feminist lens. But with Arthur constantly gone, managing the business
of Camelot, Guinevere is mostly left to her own ill-conceived devices that
usually lead to trouble. Instead of an intelligent, masterful heroine, the
reader is left with a young, inexperienced queen who listens to her heart more
than she does common sense—resulting, not surprisingly, in yet another
abduction at the end of the second book, setting the scene for the trilogy’s third
volume, The Excalibur Curse, due to be published in 2021.
Lots of unanswered questions one hopes will be resolved by
the end of book #3: Who exactly is Guinevere? Is Merlin good or evil? Which
side is Mordred on? And will Arthur and the queen finally consummate their
marriage? Recommended for young adults who are unfamiliar with the traditional
Arthurian story.
Cindy Mediavilla
Cindy Mediavilla is a retired public librarian who has
collected, read and written about Arthurian fiction for more than 40 years. Her
publications include Arthurian Fiction: An Annotated Bibliography (Scarecrow
Press, 1999), "From 'Unthinking Stereotype' to Fearless Antagonist: The
Evolution of Morgan le Fay on Television" (Arthuriana 25:1), and an
article on Arthurian romance in Encyclopedia of Romance Fiction (2018).
Cindy's MLS and PhD are from UCLA, where she also taught as a lecturer for 16
years.
