A review by crothe77
Lady's Knight by Meagan Spooner, Amie Kaufman

emotional fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix

5.0

 
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy

Lady’s Knight by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner is a third person dual-POV YA Sapphic historical fantasy romance. Lady Isobelle has been offered up as the prize in the Tournament of Dragon Slayers, meaning that she must marry whoever wins. In order to save herself from marrying one of the competitors, she recruits Gwen, the sword-wielding daughter of a blacksmith, to disguise herself as Sir Gawain. But things grow complicated as Gwen and Isobelle develop feelings for each other and the reality of the world they live in comes crashing down. 

This is compared to A Knight’s Tale and I would say that is fairly accurate. There’s anachronistic moments, such as cheesecake on a stick, and there is a more humorous tone rather than something super serious from beginning to end. Roughly every ten chapters, there’s a brief interval chapter that is in the omniscient POV and talks directly to the reader about what is happening in the story and what is going to happen. This playfulness helps sell the comparison to A Knight’s Tale, but will also be a turn-off for readers who don’t really enjoy that wink-wink nudge-nudge kind of storytelling.

The story takes place in Medieval England and the fantasy elements are fairly limited to a dragon and hedgewitches. Most of the story doesn’t actually involve the fantastical and is more centered around the historical aspects of knights, sexism, and how women could and couldn’t move through the world. Because of this, it is more of a historical romance with fantasy elements and not a high fantasy. The biggest bit of lore is probably the lore around knights that has inspired Gwen to the point that she even takes the name Gawain, who is one of the most famous knights from Arthurian lore.

Gwen and Isobelle’s romance is on the sweet side and is as much of a slowburn as there can be in a standalone. The main thing keeping them apart is society’s sexism and homophobia as members of the upper class are not only not accepting of a woman putting on armor and beating them in a tournament, but they are not alright with Gwen and Isobelle ending up together. The pair do have allies and because this is a romance, it has a happily ever after, but there are points that did make me wonder ‘Oh, how are they gonna figure this out?’

Content warning for depictions of homophobia and sexism and mentions of arranged marriages between teen girls and men older enough to be their fathers

I would recommend this to fans of historical romance who want a light fantastical touch and readers of Sapphic romance looking for a historical

 

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