Camelot's Shadow

Though this book is set in Arthurian times, we see little of Arthur and Guinevere and Camelot, though they are there in the background. The hero is Sir Gawain and the heroine (in the sense of hero, for she is a hero) the nineteen-year-old Lady Rhian, whose father had promised her at birth to a sorcerer in exchange for her mother's life.

Sir Gawain rescues her from the sorcerer (who is in league with the wicked witch Kerra who is employed by the even more wicked Morgaine in her intricate spider-like schemes to encompass the downfall of Arthur) and battle commences.

At the heart of the story looms the fabled Green Giant, an ancient god of the land whom Kerra attempts to manipulate and make use of against Gawain; for the plot of this book is based primarily on the poem of Sir Gawayne and the Grene Knight.

It is also in some ways the closest any recent writer has come to reproducing Tolkein's all but inimitable style: she even has a creature who accuses poor Rhian of being a sneak ('Sneak! Sneak!' it cried. 'Thief!') when her situation is quite as desperate as Frodo's ever was.

Like the poem, the novel contains both the human and natural and the mystical and magical. It is full of magic. Kerra, for instance, flies with the ravens; Rhian is transformed into something resembling a pig (this never happened to Frodo - and even on Circe's enchanted island it only happens to men, which doesn't seem so shocking somehow, though perhaps I'm biased); and things are not what they appear anywhere, either in the enchanted forest or the ensorcelled hovels that seem to be castles or the castles that seem to be hovels.

Then there is Gawain's brother Sir Agravain, a nasty piece of work who, though not a sorcerer or on the other "side", makes Rhian's and Gawain's lives a great deal harder than they need to be.

I loved it, and am looking forward to reading (and reviewing!) the sequel, Camelot's Honour.

(I have just noticed that there seems to be a variation in title between the US and the UK, the US titles being In Camelot's Shadow and For Camelot's Honor. But they are the same books.)