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A review by goodxgirl9238
Goddess of Legend by P.C. Cast
2.0
The Goddess Summoning series revolves around the premise of Goddesses, heavily from Greco-Roman mythology but branching out to Celtic-Arthurian mythos in this volume granting a mortal wish in exchange for the mortal assisting them in someway. For example in Goddess of Light the twins Artemis and Apollo help a interior designer deal with a difficult client when they are stuck on Earth and Apollo quickly falls for the human woman, or in Goddess of Spring where Demeter switches her daughter and a woman who called on her to fix her bakery’s financial difficulties to deal with Hades, Lord of the Underworld in a retelling of the Hades/Persephone myth.
Goddess of Legend focuses on Viviane, the Lady of the Lake summoning a mortal woman to restore Arthur’s happiness and in doing so, save Merlin from his own despair. At first she assumes this will be by seducing Lancelot away from Guinevere thus leading to the King and Queen’s marriage re-stabilizing but it goes a different route when Isabel quickly falls for the once and future king and resolves to smooth out the relationship between all parties, including an enraged and bitter Mordred who blames Arthur for his mother’s death.
One of my biggest problems with getting through this book was how awkwardly the dialogue could be. While in other books the heroine when interacting with other characters in a time period not her own managed to keep a timeless feature to the script, even when cultural differences were a key part of the interaction… How our female protagonist spoke and acted made it clear that she was independent and intelligent, it was never so much that it couldn’t be explained away. In Goddess of Legend the amulet Viviane gives to Isabel to prevent people from thinking too hard about her presence there is overused with Isabel actively using speech too modern for the time period and ideas just as modern that wouldn’t be accepted even in the ‘good kingdom’ that Camelot is supposed to be. It stretches the boundaries of what she could get away with too far and that takes you out of the setting.
The romance between Arthur and Isabel is sweet however and it can be satisfying to hear her taking Mordred to task and taking charge of what is going on around her. Despite the flaws of how she talks and some of what she does as a part of the subplot she is an interesting character and one I think could have been another one of Cast’s great heroines. If the storyline, particularly the subplot (I had a hard time pinning down a major plot-line to tell you the truth) had been more carefully written it would have been a much better story and could have explored her character much better.
For example, in the beginning of the story we’re told that she’s a great photographer, that she was in Afghanistan and was traumatized by the death of a young soldier she had gotten to know. She’s somebody who knows how to appreciate the beauty in life and understand its horror. That is something that seriously should have been explored, something that she and Arthur could have bonded over, starting the romance more slowly instead of having her nearly immediately attracted to him and dismiss the idea of seducing Lancelot the minute she realized how young he was.
Isabel could have spent the first few chapters attempting to get to know Lancelot better and through that gain an understanding of how much Gwen and Lancelot cared for each other, all the while becoming sympathetic to Arthur, getting to know him and coming to the conclusion that breaking up Lancelot and Gwen wouldn’t work but maybe her feelings for Arthur will be the solution. Having this come to a head as Mordred arrives, threatening to interrupt the marriage of two of the servants that Isabel has come to befriend and her love for Arthur is solidified through this conflict? Yeah, that might have been a more interesting and an easier read. The final sacrifice.. it was cliché and a bit hokey but the lead in to Arthur the fireman rescuing Isabel from the lake only to find that all of her friends from Camelot are there in real life and that said shared time in Camelot has been haunting Arthur the fireman’s dreams? Bit of a great way to write in a happy ending that doesn’t totally conflict with Arthurian mythos.
Overall, Goddess of Legend could have been better written but I will pass an excuse along that Cast has been pretty wrapped up recently with her much better known House of Night series and perhaps it took a sub par book to get her into the right groove. With some fine-tuning it could have been a much better novel and who knows, maybe then I would have read it faster. It suffers from too many subplots and the lack of timelessness to the dialogue.One of Cast’s strong points in her other works was that even with the occasional semi-historic setting the dialogue was always easy to read and understand without ever seeming ‘too modern’ or dated.
I will give Goddess of Legend 2.5 hearts of of 5.
Goddess of Legend focuses on Viviane, the Lady of the Lake summoning a mortal woman to restore Arthur’s happiness and in doing so, save Merlin from his own despair. At first she assumes this will be by seducing Lancelot away from Guinevere thus leading to the King and Queen’s marriage re-stabilizing but it goes a different route when Isabel quickly falls for the once and future king and resolves to smooth out the relationship between all parties, including an enraged and bitter Mordred who blames Arthur for his mother’s death.
One of my biggest problems with getting through this book was how awkwardly the dialogue could be. While in other books the heroine when interacting with other characters in a time period not her own managed to keep a timeless feature to the script, even when cultural differences were a key part of the interaction… How our female protagonist spoke and acted made it clear that she was independent and intelligent, it was never so much that it couldn’t be explained away. In Goddess of Legend the amulet Viviane gives to Isabel to prevent people from thinking too hard about her presence there is overused with Isabel actively using speech too modern for the time period and ideas just as modern that wouldn’t be accepted even in the ‘good kingdom’ that Camelot is supposed to be. It stretches the boundaries of what she could get away with too far and that takes you out of the setting.
The romance between Arthur and Isabel is sweet however and it can be satisfying to hear her taking Mordred to task and taking charge of what is going on around her. Despite the flaws of how she talks and some of what she does as a part of the subplot she is an interesting character and one I think could have been another one of Cast’s great heroines. If the storyline, particularly the subplot (I had a hard time pinning down a major plot-line to tell you the truth) had been more carefully written it would have been a much better story and could have explored her character much better.
For example, in the beginning of the story we’re told that she’s a great photographer, that she was in Afghanistan and was traumatized by the death of a young soldier she had gotten to know. She’s somebody who knows how to appreciate the beauty in life and understand its horror. That is something that seriously should have been explored, something that she and Arthur could have bonded over, starting the romance more slowly instead of having her nearly immediately attracted to him and dismiss the idea of seducing Lancelot the minute she realized how young he was.
Isabel could have spent the first few chapters attempting to get to know Lancelot better and through that gain an understanding of how much Gwen and Lancelot cared for each other, all the while becoming sympathetic to Arthur, getting to know him and coming to the conclusion that breaking up Lancelot and Gwen wouldn’t work but maybe her feelings for Arthur will be the solution. Having this come to a head as Mordred arrives, threatening to interrupt the marriage of two of the servants that Isabel has come to befriend and her love for Arthur is solidified through this conflict? Yeah, that might have been a more interesting and an easier read. The final sacrifice.. it was cliché and a bit hokey but the lead in to Arthur the fireman rescuing Isabel from the lake only to find that all of her friends from Camelot are there in real life and that said shared time in Camelot has been haunting Arthur the fireman’s dreams? Bit of a great way to write in a happy ending that doesn’t totally conflict with Arthurian mythos.
Overall, Goddess of Legend could have been better written but I will pass an excuse along that Cast has been pretty wrapped up recently with her much better known House of Night series and perhaps it took a sub par book to get her into the right groove. With some fine-tuning it could have been a much better novel and who knows, maybe then I would have read it faster. It suffers from too many subplots and the lack of timelessness to the dialogue.One of Cast’s strong points in her other works was that even with the occasional semi-historic setting the dialogue was always easy to read and understand without ever seeming ‘too modern’ or dated.
I will give Goddess of Legend 2.5 hearts of of 5.