A review by mewsie
Guenevere, Queen of the Summer Country by Rosalind Miles

3.0

Yet another retelling of the classic Arthurian tale. This book is the first in a trilogy and includes Guenevere's early years, her marriage to Arthur, and her torrid love affair with Lancelot. This time, Guenevere is perceived in a much different light than her usual beautiful yet not-so-bright and weak stereotype. Instead, she is the powerful daughter of a "Mother-Right" line of queens who fought in battle at the sides of her knights. She is a strong woman who is "saved" by her champion Arthur at her Queening from her evil uncle Malgaunt who wants to take Guenevere for his own. As with a number of other female-centered retellings of the story, Arthur is a weak man who is easily influenced by outside forces (first Merlin and then the Christian monks) and doesn't appreciate the brilliance of his wife. Lancelot is written as a rather soppy character who seems too young and too innocent in his views of the world, which was kind of disappointing. All the other stories I have read so far always give him a strong, yet kind, personality who was willing to sacrafice everything he had for his Queen. Here, he is still willing to sacrafice everything, but he seems more of a boy mentally than a man and seems rather...wishy-washy.

I did enjoy most of the content of the book and it was well written. One thing that did bother me was the constant switching to thoughts in the middle of the story. It made things more confusing to figure out not only who was doing the "thinking" but also distracted for the storyline a bit. Otherwise, it was a decent read though I've found other books out there on the subject to be much more enjoyable.