Cornwell’s storytelling is tight and engaging. The characters of Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, and Merlin are portrayed as real people with flaws and true arcs.
The settings range from Gaul to all parts of ancient Britain. The twists on the traditional Arthur myths and the disregard shown to others helped to keep this more historical retelling of those familiar stories fresh and unpredictable.
This novel is immersive and creates a vibrant, exciting, and dangerous world in which the characters are with and against one another.
Uther, the High King of Britain, has died, leaving the infant Mordred as his only heir. His uncle, the loyal and gifted warlord Arthur, now rules as caretaker for a country which has fallen into chaos - threats emerge from within the British kingdoms while vicious Saxon armies stand ready to invade. As he struggles to unite Britain and hold back the Saxon enemy, Arthur is embroiled in a doomed romance with beautiful Guinevere.
I came to the Arthurian legends through the medium of medieval Welsh literature, a subject that had intrigued and challenged me since I was an undergraduate. I found the language impenetrable and yet beautiful, while the literature it encoded was fascinatingly unlike the literary traditions of England and France. I wanted to connect with a version of Arthur that preceded the romance traditions of France and England and bears witness to a much older culture and social organisation. Though I've learned to love other versions of Arthur, and indeed I teach the Arthurian legends as part of my academic work, the stark drama of the Welsh poems and tales continues to intrigue me.
This book-length study of the magical figure of Merlin is the most authoritative account of the literary lives of Merlin, Arthur’s wizard guide, from his earliest incarnation in Welsh poetry to his reinvention in modern novels and films.
Stephen Knight, a prolific medievalist whose work is always readable and entertaining, takes Merlin’s gifts of knowledge and foresight as his theme, arguing that throughout the many versions of Merlin in literary texts, operations of power are always working to restrict and contain Merlin’s command of knowledge.
Reading this book takes you on a journey that will enrich your understanding of the Arthurian legends.
Merlin, the wizard of Arthurian legend, has been a source of enduring fascination for centuries. In this authoritative, entertaining, and generously illustrated book, Stephen Knight traces the myth of Merlin back to its earliest roots in the early Welsh figure of Myrddin. He then follows Merlin as he is imagined and reimagined through centuries of literature and art, beginning with Geoffrey of Monmouth, whose immensely popular History of the Kings of Britain (1138) transmitted the story of Merlin to Europe at large. He covers French and German as well as Anglophone elements of the myth and brings the story up…
I’m the author of the humorous YA novels The Supervillain and Me andThe Good for Nothings. I’ve been telling stories since I could talk, including the night I recited an entire Mickey Mouse scratch and sniff book to my mother at bedtime (she’s so proud), and the numerous evenings I subjected my friends and family to another one of my home “movies” set in front of a poorly painted bedsheet backdrop in my basement. I owe my writing career to Spider-Man (Andrew Garfield’s version), who inspired my first book. I spent countless college classes thinking about him instead of paying attention, but it all worked out in the end.
This gender-swapped retelling of King Arthur showcases a female Merlin, Emry, who packs some serious girl power. Far superior at magic than her twin brother Emmett, Emry takes his place training as the new court wizard for the adorable, bumbling Prince Arthur. I knew I was going to love this book when chapter one began with Arthur and Lancelot sneaking out of the castle to have one too many drinks at a bar and ended with Arthur getting sick all over Sir Kay’s shoes. Witty banter among lovable characters, the occasional bit of bathroom humor, and lots of magic and heart made this book one of my favorites of 2021.
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR! - Publishers Weekly
"Simultaneously heart-pounding and hilarious, Robyn Schneider gives us a veritable romp through Camelot fueled by adventure and romance." —Kerri Maniscalco, #1 NYT bestselling author of The Kingdom of the Wicked and Stalking Jack the Ripper
Channeling the modern humor of The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue, bestselling author Robyn Schneider creates a Camelot that becomes the ultimate teen rom-com hotspot in this ultra-fresh take on the Arthurian legend.
Welcome to the great kingdom of Camelot! Prince Arthur’s a depressed botanist who would rather marry a library than a…
I’ve been in love with fairytales since childhood when I picked up a collection of fairytales by Hans Christian Anderson. These stories shaped my imagination, so much so that I longed for distant mysterious lands full of magic, wonder, and mystical creatures. Though in a way, I guess I did live a bit of a fairytale, having grown up surrounded by thick woods and open fields, as one of twelve siblings. Now as an adult, I still wish I could escape to distant fantastical lands, but I’ll just have to stick with the ones I find between the pages of books and the ones in my own head!
I loved this take on the classic fairytale, with the addition of the thirteenth princess hidden from the rest of the world and living as a servant. And despite all this, she still fought to save her sisters, taking on the role of the hero of the story instead of the soldier character in the original tale. It’s a fast and fun read, and one of the reasons I fell in love with The Twelve Dancing Princesses fairytale.
My name is Zita,and I am the thirteenth princess.My twelve sisters are legendary, even infaraway kingdoms, but I am sure thatyou have never heard of me.
Zita is not just any servant—she’s the thirteenth daughterof a king who wanted only sons. When all her royal sisters fallmysteriously ill, the only clue is their strangely worn and tatteredshoes. Something sinister is afoot—and Zita must find the sourceof the enchantment and break the curse, or the twelve princesseswill surely dance to their deaths.
When I was a girl, my grandmother called me an ‘old soul’ and said she thought my fascination with the 19th century meant that I’d lived then in another life. Ever since, this notion that a person might have lived before has always fascinated me! I gravitate to books that bring the past and present together in all sorts of ways–through memory, ghosts, time travel…and reincarnation. Now my own books of suspense for kids and teens deal with many of those same themes. I always write books I would want to read myself!
Who doesn’t love a new take
on the Arthurian Legend of King Arthur? This fairly light-hearted story tells of King Arthur and his friends
reincarnated in modern times. Age-old legends, it seems, never die… and now present-day
teenagers Will and Elaine must fight the same battles for good to triumph over
evil. It’s a modern twist on a classic love
story, and a lot of fun.
Avalon High, Ellie's new school, is pretty much what she'd expected. There's Lance, the hunky footballer. Jennifer, the cute cheerleader. Marco, the troublemaker. And then there's Will - the most gorgeous guy Ellie's ever met. She can hardly believe he likes HER.
When Will says he thinks he's met Ellie before, things start getting a little weird. A feeling that grows as Ellie discovers the strange bonds that entwine Will, Lance, Jen, Marco - and herself.
As darkness turns to danger, can Ellie stop the horrific chain of events that is about to engulf them all . . .
I vividly remember the first time a book transported me—it was in Mrs. Paul’s second-grade math class, and I was reading The Voyage of the Dawn Treader under the desk. It carried me away to a different world. I’ve been looking for that same magic in every book since, hoping to fall into a picture or open a wardrobe door to another place and time. This list contains a few of my favorites, the stories that have earned permanent spots on my shelves, the ones that get pulled down when I need some enchantment in my life. (And don’t we all need a little magic these days?)
The second in the Dark Is Rising series, the story follows Will Stanton, last of the Old Ones.
On his eleventh birthday, he learns he is a warrior with great power, compelled to take part in the ancient cycle of battle between the Dark and the Light.
Moody, atmospheric, and with a carefully constructed backstory filled with Celtic folklore and the natural world, it’s beautifully written, sophisticated in a way children’s literature rarely is, and has echoed in my mind for years.
On the Midwinter Day that is his eleventh birthday, Will Stanton discovers a special gift-- that he is the last of the Old Ones, immortals dedicated to keeping the world from domination by the forces of evil, the Dark. At once, he is plunged into a quest for the six magical Signs that will one day aid the Old Ones in the final battle between the Dark and the Light. And for the twelve days of Christmas, while the Dark is rising, life for Will is full of wonder, terror, and delight.
This is book two of this series and I loved it every bit as much as the author’s debut.
Who doesn’t love an Arthurian story of power, love, magic, and female empowerment? This is a high-stakes fantasy that draws you quickly into Bree’s story of destiny and magic. I had to force myself to read this book slowly so I could wallow in the beautiful writing on every page.
Arthurian history, Black American history, generational trauma, and maternal natural magic are deftly woven into the plot without bogging the story down or bloating descriptions. The fast-paced plot and action sequences keep the story flowing well. You get to the end wanting so much more. And the fight sequences are fabulous.
Who doesn’t love a good magical sword fight or two involving aether-created monsters, sorcerers weaving spells like blades, fiery love-fueled anger, spirit possession, and magical armor? I immediately wanted to…
SPLINTERED BLOODLINES. UNBREAKABLE BARGAINS. A LEGACY OF BETRAYAL.
The powerful sequel to the instant New York Times bestselling and award-winning Legendborn that's taking TikTok by storm. Perfect for fans of Cassandra Clare, Leigh Bardugo, Sarah J. Maas and Cinderella is Dead!
The shadows have risen, and the line is law.
All Bree wanted was to uncover the truth behind her mother's death. So she infiltrated the Legendborn Order, a secret society descended from King Arthur's knights - only to discover her own ancestral power. Now, Bree has become someone new:
As a university historian and archaeologist my focus has been the Early Middle Ages. In the 1990s I wrote several books about the fifth and sixth centuries which barely mentioned Arthur but popular histories and films based on his story just kept coming, so I decided to look again at his story and work out how and why it developed as it did. I have published three well-received books on the subject, each of which builds on the one before, plus articles that have been invited to be included in edited volumes. I disagree with much in the five books above but collectively they reflect the debate across my lifetime. It is a great debate, I hope you enjoy it.
Geoffrey’s History of the Kings is the work that picked Arthur up from the somewhat obscure backwater of Welsh story-telling and launched him onto the European stage, in the process creating a story that had an enormous influence on how the insular past was understood across the rest of the Middle Ages. Geoffrey was writing for the new Norman elite, who welcomed a view of the past which downplayed the Anglo-Saxons and centred instead on their rivals for control of ancient Britain, the Britons. He based his magnificent new work on the Historia Brittonum, a set of Welsh genealogies and various stories, all of which he embroidered from his own fertile imagination to construct a complex vision of insular history no closer to what had really happened than modern works such as Lord of the Rings or Star Wars.
But by tapping into political and cultural needs in…
This imaginative history of the Britons, written in the twelfth century, is the first work to recount the woes of Lear and the glittering career of Arthur. It rapidly became a bestseller in the British Isles and Francophone Europe, with over 200 manuscripts surviving. Here, an authoritative version of the text is presented with a facing translation, prepared especially for the volume. It also contains a full introduction and notes.
MICHAEL REEVEis Kennedy Professor of Latin Emeritus at the Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge; Dr NEIL WRIGHT is a Senior Language Teaching Officer at the Faculty of History, University…
Cory O’Brien, author of such books as Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: a No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology, grew up reading myths and legends of all sorts, and turned that passion into a career with the advent of his extremely serious mythology website. He has always had a fondness for the Arthurian Legend in particular, ever since his father read him Howard Pyle’s King Arthur books as a child, and he realized he could use them as a moral justification for hitting other kids with big sticks.
Sir Gawaine is one of the most interesting knights of the Round Table because of how imperfect he is. He’s not the strongest knight in the world -- that’s Lancelot -- and he’s definitely not the most virtuous -- that’s Galahad, who sucks -- he’s a working-class joe who routinely gets in over his head because he loves to swing swords more than he likes thinking about consequences. Sir Gawaine and the Green knight is a story of one of the knight’s most famous capers, and it does not disappoint. The original story was written in Old English, which is barely even English to be honest, so you’re going to need a translation to read it, and who better to translate such a story than J.R.R. Tolkien himself. Yes, that Tolkien. When he wasn’t making elves and humans kiss each other, he was a prolific philologist and translator, and The…
This elegant deluxe slipcased edition of three medieval English poems, translated by Tolkien for the modern-day reader and containing romance, tragedy, love, sex and honour, features a beautifully decorated text and includes as a bonus the complete text of Tolkien's acclaimed lecture on Sir Gawain.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Pearl are two poems by an unknown author written in about 1400. Sir Gawain is a romance, a fairy-tale for adults, full of life and colour; but it is also much more than this, being at the same time a powerful moral tale which examines religious and social…
I have loved fairy tales since I was a little girl and watched my first Disney movie. Over the years, I’ve read many fairy tale retellings, as well as the original versions. I love how writers can see a story like Beauty and the Beast and find ways to make an almost completely new story, but still hold true to the original concepts of the fairy tale. Fairy tales connect us to our childhood and when we read these new versions, it lets us relive a part of our childhood. Not many books can do that!
The Guinevere Deception is a brilliant Camelot retelling that drew me in for many reasons, the main one being the friendships between the women in White’s book. Guinevere has strong connections to the women close to her and this helps her take on her new rule as Camelot’s queen. I also loved how White made the famous knight Lancelot a woman, which further plays with the King Arthur legend. As if that wasn’t enough to recommend this book, White kept readers guessing with the romance in this book. Who will Guinevere choose? Morded? Arthur? Someone else? You have to keep reading the trilogy to find out!
"Fascinating. . . . Kiersten White has taken the best parts of the Arthurian legend and made them all her own."--Renée Ahdieh, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Wrath and the Dawn series.
A new fantasy series set in the world of Camelot that bestselling author Christina Lauren calls "brilliant," reimagining the Arthurian legend . . . where nothing is 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…
