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A review by skylarkblue1
Sisters of Sword and Shadow by Laura Bates
adventurous
dark
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? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.75
Thank you Netgalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review!
So, I went into this book thinking it was going to be a very gay, sapphic, arthurian tale. What I got instead was just a kinda fun romp around medieval England that was insanely loosely based on arthurian legends and a book that if you call it mainly gay you'd also have to say it's incestuous.
Normally when a book promotes itself as queer I'd expect it to either have an overwhelmingly gay cast or the main character is what's being advertised (so for this, I'd expect the main character to be sapphic).
Instead what's in the book is a single sapphic relationship between 2 side characters and the main character having the same intense relationship with Lily, the squire she meets, as she does with her own biological sister. They sleep in the same bed together cuddled up, tell each other all their secrets, Cass pines over both of them in the same way, talks about them in the same way... There's absolutely no way to say Cass and Lily have a romantic relationship without saying that Cass and Mary (her sister) where also in a romantic relationship. And it's kinda hard to just say they're friends or just sisters with just how much emphasis is put on some parts of the relationships. It just felt a bit odd throughout the whole book imo.
And then there's additionally that ending twist with a kiss... *with a man* (This isn't a spoiler, it literally changes like, nothing lmao). I literally thought I had missed out a whole chapter or 2 between the sentence before the kiss, and the kiss itself because of just how random and out of place it is. I'd imagine it has a place in the second book (I guess there's gonna be a second book?) but I can't see much other place than, she'll be in a hetero relationship. So I'm really failing to see how this is being pushed so hard as a queer, specifically *sapphic*, fantasy.
Now that rant about that point is out of the way, apologies lmao, onto my thoughts for the rest of the book. Some minor spoilers, but points that are more than worth bringing up I believe and worth knowing before reading. The book is already marketed as fantasy so it shouldn't be that big of a spoiler.
The plot is pretty thin in general. Cass runs away from home to join a secret guild of female knights - how she got there was kinda just pure randomness and kinda odd when you learn about how secretive they all are. The plot is mainly just Cass training to become a knight and working towards that goal. It's quite nice though, it's pretty fun to read a medieval knights book but with a female twist that's based in reality (.......... mainly. More on that in a bit) because I don't really think I've read something similar before. It was fun reading through the training and the contests and life battling land borders and such.
The feminist angle, while nice, was kinda just, hitting you over the head with a brick for a bit. Very much a "all men bad" but then in the final couple chapters is suddenly changes to "well, some aren't I guess". Though some people need points being so explicitly pointed out so, eh I guess. Just don't go into this expecting any message to be subtle.
Now for the fantasy vs realism point. This book is around like 90% realism and a bit of random, vague fantasy thrown in. I thought this would be a good story of a woman working her way up the ranks starting with nothing and growing in power more and more with perserverance and strength. In reality, it's another "chosen one" type story despite it starting off like that. Cass kinda just, goes into a state of depersonalisation kind of and magic takes over and makes her super powerful with no effort. No this is not explained, no this is not really making any sense, yes it does kinda just feel pushed in to be part of the Chosen One trend that still seems to exist.
IMO this is feeling like exactly what happened with Mulan's live action remake. The original Disney animated Mulan film was a fantastic film about female strength as Mulan had to use her own cunning and wits to make up for a lack of strength and training. She was on her own and had to work harder than the others to prove herself. And what did the live action remake do? Oh mulan now just has magical powers that make her a god from as young as a child. It just undermines any feminist point imo. That's exactly how this book feels to me.
I'll presume book 2 will go into the fantasy side a lot more and drop more of the realism which honestly will be a shame in my opinion. I am kind of worried about what direction it'll take. The ending of this book feels like the actual ending was entirely missing, it just kind of cuts of and feels a bit jarring so I honestly don't really know what the sequel would do.
Reading some bits about the book, it seems like it'll be a duology. I'm not sure how well the story will be wrapped up in just 1 more book. There's a lot of *major* plot threads that got started here and barely progressed at all, so I'm concerned the sequel will feel a bit too packed to try and establish, and then wrap up everything. I don't think I'd currently recommend the book, I'll be reading the sequel and then based on that I might come back to this review.
So, I went into this book thinking it was going to be a very gay, sapphic, arthurian tale. What I got instead was just a kinda fun romp around medieval England that was insanely loosely based on arthurian legends and a book that if you call it mainly gay you'd also have to say it's incestuous.
Normally when a book promotes itself as queer I'd expect it to either have an overwhelmingly gay cast or the main character is what's being advertised (so for this, I'd expect the main character to be sapphic).
Instead what's in the book is a single sapphic relationship between 2 side characters and the main character having the same intense relationship with Lily, the squire she meets, as she does with her own biological sister. They sleep in the same bed together cuddled up, tell each other all their secrets, Cass pines over both of them in the same way, talks about them in the same way... There's absolutely no way to say Cass and Lily have a romantic relationship without saying that Cass and Mary (her sister) where also in a romantic relationship. And it's kinda hard to just say they're friends or just sisters with just how much emphasis is put on some parts of the relationships. It just felt a bit odd throughout the whole book imo.
And then there's additionally that ending twist with a kiss... *with a man* (This isn't a spoiler, it literally changes like, nothing lmao). I literally thought I had missed out a whole chapter or 2 between the sentence before the kiss, and the kiss itself because of just how random and out of place it is. I'd imagine it has a place in the second book (I guess there's gonna be a second book?) but I can't see much other place than, she'll be in a hetero relationship. So I'm really failing to see how this is being pushed so hard as a queer, specifically *sapphic*, fantasy.
Now that rant about that point is out of the way, apologies lmao, onto my thoughts for the rest of the book. Some minor spoilers, but points that are more than worth bringing up I believe and worth knowing before reading. The book is already marketed as fantasy so it shouldn't be that big of a spoiler.
The plot is pretty thin in general. Cass runs away from home to join a secret guild of female knights - how she got there was kinda just pure randomness and kinda odd when you learn about how secretive they all are. The plot is mainly just Cass training to become a knight and working towards that goal. It's quite nice though, it's pretty fun to read a medieval knights book but with a female twist that's based in reality (.......... mainly. More on that in a bit) because I don't really think I've read something similar before. It was fun reading through the training and the contests and life battling land borders and such.
The feminist angle, while nice, was kinda just, hitting you over the head with a brick for a bit. Very much a "all men bad" but then in the final couple chapters is suddenly changes to "well, some aren't I guess". Though some people need points being so explicitly pointed out so, eh I guess. Just don't go into this expecting any message to be subtle.
Now for the fantasy vs realism point. This book is around like 90% realism and a bit of random, vague fantasy thrown in. I thought this would be a good story of a woman working her way up the ranks starting with nothing and growing in power more and more with perserverance and strength. In reality, it's another "chosen one" type story despite it starting off like that. Cass kinda just, goes into a state of depersonalisation kind of and magic takes over and makes her super powerful with no effort. No this is not explained, no this is not really making any sense, yes it does kinda just feel pushed in to be part of the Chosen One trend that still seems to exist.
IMO this is feeling like exactly what happened with Mulan's live action remake. The original Disney animated Mulan film was a fantastic film about female strength as Mulan had to use her own cunning and wits to make up for a lack of strength and training. She was on her own and had to work harder than the others to prove herself. And what did the live action remake do? Oh mulan now just has magical powers that make her a god from as young as a child. It just undermines any feminist point imo. That's exactly how this book feels to me.
I'll presume book 2 will go into the fantasy side a lot more and drop more of the realism which honestly will be a shame in my opinion. I am kind of worried about what direction it'll take. The ending of this book feels like the actual ending was entirely missing, it just kind of cuts of and feels a bit jarring so I honestly don't really know what the sequel would do.
Reading some bits about the book, it seems like it'll be a duology. I'm not sure how well the story will be wrapped up in just 1 more book. There's a lot of *major* plot threads that got started here and barely progressed at all, so I'm concerned the sequel will feel a bit too packed to try and establish, and then wrap up everything. I don't think I'd currently recommend the book, I'll be reading the sequel and then based on that I might come back to this review.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Child death, Gore, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, and Misogyny
Moderate: Sexual assault
Minor: Incest
Incest isn't explicit, read full review for more context. Depersonalisation as well is in multiple parts of the book.