I really wanted to like this book. As a reader of primarily fantasy, sci-fi, and horror, I have not really delved into the romantasy world and want to remedy that. An Arthurian fantasy with a fun romance sounded like a great way to get my romantasy journey started! Unfortunately, I couldn't make it past chapter four.

There is a lot of potential in this book: while the writing is quite flowery, I think that could absolutely be a plus if there were fewer repetitions of phrases ("dragged her gaze," feeling emotions in her "marrow," and so on). Additionally, the simple fact that the main characters are referred to via epithets in their own POV chapters (which list their names at the beginnings of those chapters...) every other paragraph for several pages was off-putting. That is not to say I didn't enjoy anything about what I read, though! The scene where Nyneve meets Guinevere is compelling and left me intrigued as to how the dynamic between those characters would play out. Also, the world-building sounds cool from what I got of it (though a lot of that was via info-dump in the first or second chapter).

As for the male love interest, maybe it's just because I'm queer, but right off the bat I knew the dynamic between him and Nyneve would not be my cup of tea. Again, that's personal preference, and I will chalk a lot of it up to the fact that I am not used to the genre. A mysterious smirking man with a bad reputation sounds great to me, to be honest, but I think it was something about how Nyneve reacted to him that made me roll my eyes a bit. Very classic "not interested but actually I'm feeling warm for some reason that I can't name" energy. Which, again, is a trope that I am sure lots of people enjoy, but it's just not really for me.

Ultimately I'm giving this book two stars because I DNF-ed early but saw potential in the writing style and some of the characters, and because I believe it could definitely appeal to fans of the romantasy genre who know what they're getting into.