In the meantime! My good friend and partner in crime, SamoaPhoenix, who can be found on fictionpress but is probably more famously known for her Beauty and the Beast retellings on fanfiction (I highly recommend everything she's ever written). Also, she has a TV Tropes page (it's empty, but it's there), so you know she must be awesome. She is a lover of all things Beauty and the Beast, which translates into a great love of Gawain because the Loathly Lady story is basically Beauty and the Beast with the genders reversed. She is reviewing Gawain and Lady Green by Ann Eliot Crompton, sequel to Merlin's Harp (more of a midquel, actually) which I reviewed here. Please give her a warm welcome and enjoy her review.
~Storyteller Knight
 | Title: Gawain and Lady Green Author: Ann Eliot Crompton Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire Pages: 216 Synopsis: (from the book) Gwyneth wasn’t supposed to fall in love with Gawain. Not like this. Gawain was the May King—a sacrifice offered to the Goddesss for a bountiful harvest in return. Gwyneth knows this. His fate has been decided by powers beyond her control. But the warmth of his touch and the taste of his lips have blurred the lines of what she knows to be true. Now Gwyneth is willing to risk everything to keep Gawain alive, even if it means losing him forever… |
Hello everyone, I’m SamoaPhoenix. Since Story is busy with NaNo Camp for two months and I just finished an Arthurian retelling, I thought I’d jump in with a review. While I am not the Arthurian expert Story is, I do know a lot about most of the more famous legends. Especially Gawain (he and Gaheris are my favorites). So you may see a few other reviews from me pop up here and there, because believe it or not there are some Arthurian retellings I’ve read that she hasn’t. Le gasp!
Since Story began her review of Merlin’s Harp (by the same author and set in the same universe as this book) with a comment on the change in covers, I will do so as well. The original cover is a very standard one for an Arthurain tale: plain, with a painting of people in medieval dress.
The new cover actually has pictures of Gawain and Lady Green on it. The cover is also mostly green! I am more a fan of the new cover as it led me to purchase the book in the first place and actually has something to do with what happens in the book. However: two problems I see. 1. The new cover looks a little “young” for what I feel the intended audience is. There is a lot of sex in this book. Not graphic, but it is mentioned frequently enough that even in early high school I might have felt uncomfortable reading it (Story will tell me this is because I was a prude). That aside, this cover looks aimed at middle schoolers, not high schoolers. Not sure I want my future middle school child reading this. 2. It peeves me when cover designers don’t bother to read the book they are making a cover for. It is mentioned a lot in the book that Lady Green has red hair. Would it have killed them to actually find a redhead to put on the cover? Yeesh.
Anyway, on to the review! (Spoilers Ahoy!)
