This RITA® Reader Challenge 2017 review was written by Spice. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Paranormal Romance category.
The summary:
An ancient evil rises. An ancient warrior awakens.
In an age clouded by legend, Gawain was one of King Arthur’s greatest knights. When he awakens centuries after the fall of Camelot, he faces his most daunting quest yet—the search for his missing companions. His hope is that Tamsin Greene, the alluring historian at Medievaland Theme Park, can help him. Then he senses the magic within her… Gawain will now have to trust a witch—and his own heart—to rouse the knights of the Round Table and save humanity from a faery onslaught.
Here is Spice's review:
I was excited at the thought of snagging a book for the Smart Bitches Trashy Books RITA Reader Challenge. SBTB is the first book blog I read, and a great example of what I want our blog to be when it grows up. I carefully went over the list (well, what was left of the list, it was kind of slim pickings by the time I looked) and Enchanted Warrior stood out.
The King Arthur theme did worry me a bit. I have a love/hate relationship with adaptations of my favorite stories from childhood. Some of them blow me away with the creativity and fun in how a beloved character or story line is portrayed. Others crash and burn in a big way for me, usually because the basic essence of the story or a beloved character changed so much, everything that was so wonderful about them is lost.
Tamsin is a modern day witch desperately trying to prove herself worthy of being the loremaster for the Shadowring witches. This would get her out of the small town her coven is based at and also out of danger of an arranged marriage. She was a brave little thing and seemed super smart which is why I thought it odd she had no idea how powerful she was. In fact, the farther along in the book we got, the more powerful she became with no explanation really of how or why.
As for Gawain, his armor might shine, but only to distract us from the fact he was a wishy washy asshat. He wasn’t just a knight: Gawain is a witch who comes from an evil family full of witches, the LaFayes (as in Morgan LaFaye). Between his family and the fact he had a tragic magic-gone-wrong mishap as a child, he hates witches and anything to do with magic. This seemed at odds with allowing himself to be magically turned to stone for centuries in order to fight some evil later, but I guess we’re supposed to ignore this. The final straw for me with Gawain was he is the one who graced us with the most TSTL moments of the book. It’s no secret I can’t stand TSTL heroines, but now I know a TSTL hero is much, much worse.
I’m also not big into heroes who indulge in self loathing. It drove me crazy when Gawain would completely dislike what Tamsin was (even though he is one too) but then use her powers to help him find the other knights. She proved her loyalty and heart to him time and time again, but it was never enough because she was a hated witch. Maybe if he had gotten over himself early on, but nope, he kept this attitude up until almost the end of the book, even after he acknowledged he loved her. See… Asshat of the first degree.
While making use of her witchy powers he had no issue embracing some of her other, ahem, charms. In fact he stormed her castle as often as he could and in some situations that had me thinking things like “I realize you are horny and all, but shouldn’t you be worried about the flying demons coming at you?”. Usually for a good, hot, smexy scene I’ll look past a few anomalies, but the ridiculous floweriness of the dialogue had the effect of a wet blanket on any sex scenes, fizzing out the potential sizzle.
With just a handful of other characters making cameo appearances, this was mainly the Tamsin and Gawain show. Mordred was an antagonist who was so OTT evil I had a hard time taking him seriously. Refreshingly, Nimueh, the Lady of the Lake’s character, captivated my interest. At first she glance she was unfeeling due to repercussions of the same spell used to freeze Gawain and the knights, but there were glimmers of humanity that made me want more from her.
Angmar, one of the few fae who escaped that same spell, is who I wished had been the hero. He was haunted, driven, and smart which made me want so much more of him. When King Arthur makes his appearance he was no better than Gawain. In fact, he owned the asshat crown, IMO, which completely sucked since I basically hero worshipped him as a child.
Nimueh and Angmar saved this book for me, but they just weren’t enough to override the absolute asshattishness of the hero, and King Arthur.
This book is available from:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well.
Thanks!
Omg. I agree with you 100% about all of this. Angmar was my favorite and I was actually shipping him and Tamsin by the end.
Maybe I’m too easy of a grader, lol.
Loved your review 🙂
I am so sad about this review. I have loved books by Sharon Ashwood in the past. Thanks for the review.
I too grew up loving/in love with King Arthur! So… favorite/least favorite modern Arthurian novels?
This is particularly disappointing because I just finished reading a traditional story in which Gawain is the opposite of an asshat: see any version of “The Wedding of Gawain” or “Sir Gawain and Lady Ragnell”. The story goes, a grotesquely hideous woman forced King Arthur to find her a husband because he couldn’t answer her question “what do women want?”; Gawain agreed to marry her. On their wedding night, she became charming. She explained that she was under a curse and that it had been broken by a knight agreeing freely to marry her, but only he would be able to see her real shape at night, everyone else would see her grotesque shape. Or, alternatively, he could choose for the court to see her as she was, but she’d be bespelled at night. Gawain replied that it was actually up to her which of those two options she wanted. Thereupon, Lady Ragnell said that the spell was truly broken and she’d be herself both day and night, because Gawain had divined what women really want: to choose for themselves. (My current favorite telling of this story is one by Simon Heywood in the book Ballad Tales.)
@Vasha: I don’t know if it’s specifically Gawain, but that is the Wife of Bath’s tale in the Canterbury Tales!
In fairness, there’s a pretty robust medieval tradition of Gawain-as-asshat, running in parallel with Gawain-as-hero. (The Wife of Bath’s tale referenced above is part of the “hero” tradition.) I’m not an expert, but I believe generally the English-language Gawains were heroic and the French-language ones were much less so, but the traditions contaminated each other leading to a bit of a mess. Part of the problem is that Gawain is known as the knight who is sworn to defend all ladies – which EITHER makes him a hero or the world’s biggest player. I have no problem with Arthur as asshat either, since he’s pretty much that in a lot of stories, but I’m not sure about a medievalist-witch. Might be fun, might be teeth-gritting. Hmmm….
“In fact, the farther along in the book we got, the more powerful she became with no explanation really of how or why.”
She’s earning XP and leveling up, of course!
/gamer
Popping back after checking this out of the library and reading it in an afternoon. I think averaging the two reviews to a C grade is fair. The book gets points for not taking itself too seriously, and for weaving various legendary traditions together nicely (shoutout to Bertilak much appreciated) and I found the central pairing pleasant enough.
But it felt like there were some missed opportunities that felt like the author trying to avoid controversy. Why should doomsday in particular be NOW? Wouldn’t it make more sense to try to awaken Arthur, say, during the Battle of Britain? Or during the English Civil War or the French Revolution, when a king might find himself asking some tough questions about whether kingship is a good idea? Having the immortal warfare being completely disconnected from events in the present made the stakes feel rather low for me.
The thing I found most charmingly medieval was the explanation of why the whole story takes place in Washington state. It’s such a perfect example of the translatio imperii principle that made medieval English literature go to great lengths to explain how really the Britons were descended from the Romans, who were descended from Aeneas, and were thus REALLY Trojans culturally. It’s such a funny mixture of arrogant cultural appropriation and humble inferiority complex. We could have used local legends. But then, so could Geoffrey of Monmouth.
Wow, I’ve been patiently waiting for my review to post, so of course, it does when I’m out of town with no Wi-fi. Glad you guys liked it, thank you so much!
Lucy, My favorite modern Arthurian retellings would probably be the Avalon series by Marion Zimmer Bradley and Bernard Cornwell’s Warlord Chronicles. It’s been years since I’ve read them, but I still remember how I felt reading them the first time. My least favorite is Stephen Lawhead’s Pendragon Cycle. It’s also been years since I read them, but I remember not liking them AT ALL no matter how much I like Lawhead’s Sci-fi stuff. Another book I tried to read several times but just kept putting down was Mark Twain’s Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. Even Mark Twain can’t make time travel interesting for me.
Rebecca, love that different people see different things to like and dislike in these books.
Vasha, I had forgotten about the Wife of Bath story. Thanks for reminding me.
Althea, I cracked up with your XP explanation. Fits perfectly.