Reviews

Blackheart Knights by Laure Eve

daisy_anne's review

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

leotorre's review

4.25

fun worldbuilding fun plot presentation fun narration very excellent queer rep exactly what i needed to keep pulling me out of reading slump

lady_moon's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

‘But some knights, they have a hunger inside them. It is its own creature, and like all living things, it’s driven by survival. Because if you’re not hungry anymore, the hunger dies, neh? It’ll deny you comfort just so it can go on living. So maybe you get your comfort and it’ll be fine – for a while. But as soon as you think that’s it, you’re sated, it’ll come a-creeping back.’

Rep: sapphic MC, enby aroace-coded side character, Black female side character, enby Asian-coded side character, aromantic-coded pan side character, BIPOC-coded side characters, sapphic & achilliean side characters, queernormative world

Actual rating is 3.5/4.0 stars but I took away half a star because my aromantic ass is tired of the narrative 'romantic love is all you need to be happy'. And overall because I was annoyed at the unnecessary attraction Art and Red was feeling towards certain people - the purpose of it was nothing but to make it more angsty. I really would have enjoyed the book more without this, as I couldn't care less about their random romances.

Some plot twists shocked me, I'll give it that. Other I saw from mile away (like that

Red is Art's daughter from Belisan

). The writing itself was excellent. There were some extraordinary prose, I loved these bits. Now, this books is very interesting combination of story and characters. It's very much an urban fantasy but also slow paced and atmospheric as hell. The plot is a little, weird, a bit sloppy creater. All of the chapters are mostly conversations and fragment of occurrences that let us know what has been happening outside of these conversationsor give us glimpses of the narrators' inner world. It's focused mostly on our main characters (Art and Red) and their inner conflics - but at the same time it felt like a plot-driven book. They are barely left with space to spend with the other characters and to let us feel their relationships properly. The exceptions are maybe one or two characters for each Red and Art. I wanted so bad to get to know Art's friend group - Garad, Lucan and Lillath. We get more of Garad in the first quarter or so of the book and then they're almost dissappear, appearing only a few more times. Not to mention Lillath and Lucan who barely were there, especially Lucan.

I also think it's missed opportunity not to make Art queer and Red a lesbian. Art is ever only explicitly interested in women. Red could easily be a lesbian if one particular character (

Wyll

) was a woman and not a man. Seriously, if Red isn't getting pregnant or something in the next book, he easily could have been a woman or enby.

Now, considering I have almost 200 highlights & notes on the book, I will stop here and finish off with this:

You see, I'm studying political science at university - first year. This books makes me want to drop out and to go live somewhere far away so I can get away from the disgusting, repulsive and dirty thing the politic is.

Because to have Orcade being the same disgusting corrupt little shit her brother was but smarter and worse, and then to have Art, who was so worried the whole time he'll become a corrupt politician, to have his only big misjudgment of someone come bite him on the ass years after it happened, was gutting.

exuberantlybuds's review against another edition

While the book has an interesting premise and did at times have moments that kept me engaged, there really was nothing that hooked me enough to want to keep reading. The writing style is also just not for me, a lot of paragraphs felt really overwritten.
Might give it another shot one day! 

ramunepocky's review

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated

3.5

The concept and world building was definitely interesting, and I enjoyed the spin on the Arthurian legends. I enjoyed that the book was told in two different perspectives and periods of time, Art from the time his father dies and becomes a reluctant king, showing him coming into his own and learning how to be king and the consequences of that, and Red, a young Godschild desperate to be a knight and for her revenge. I knew that some big event would happen at the end by the countdown of "18 years ago" "two months ago", etc, which also did a good job of showing the passing time and the two different periods coming together, though I hadnt quite predicted what that event would be. I did predict the "twist" though of who Red truly was esp since it was paralled between her and Art. I really enjoyed the queernormative world and the array of queer characters, my favourite of whom was Garad!! Asides from them and a fondness for Art, I didnt really find myself connecting to any characters strongly, which is always a strange experience when reading as I usually get attached to everyone. There was also an unneccessary amount of sex scenes that I just skipped as they didnt add anything to the story and ruined my immersive into the story. I have an ARC of the sequel that Im looking forward to reading, but I genuinely think the story wrapped itself up well, even if its technically a cliffhanger.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Blood, Gun violence, Death, Sexual content, and Drug use

Moderate: Death of parent

Minor: Rape and Infidelity

the rape is just mentioned and not on screen

carola84's review

2.0

Thank you Jo Fletcher Books and NetGalley for providing me an e-arc in exchange for an honest review. My review is my own and not influenced by others.

I just finished reading Blackheart Knight. I am not a King Arthur fan but the description of this book sounded really good so I decided to give it a try and see if I would like it.

The world building was something I found interesting and well build. The writer took her time to describe it well. The characters were unfortunately flat in my opinion, I couldn’t connect with them fully. Even though this book was written from both point of views, I didn't get to know Art and Red really well.
The story didn’t make sense for most part; many things were not explained through to the story but just told at the end. Beside that I found it for the most part boring to be honest and long winded and it’s not because of the writing style, because I liked that.
This book however was not somehing I enjoyed reading.

kayo32's review

adventurous emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

drunkducks's review

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

gay's review

medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

beansandfungi's review

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Blackheart Knights was good. The concept is incredible, and it could have been a great book. But it is let down by one of the two POVs. Art's POV takes up about half of the book - every other chapter - and even though it spans nearly two decades, it feels as though he doesn't change much at all. In his last POV chapter, I had to keep reminding myself that he's not the teenager he is in his first chapter. The other POV character, Red, has much better chapters. My other criticism here is that the world building is lacking. Although the whole "Arthurian knights on motorbikes in a Cyberpunk-y alternate London" is a really cool concept for a world, I didn't feel that the Cyberpunk really came through. From what's in the book, Blackheart Knights could almost just as easily be a modern day alternate London. It's a shame, but the fact is that Blackheart Knights has a fantastic premise let down by underwhelming writing.