eARC Review – The Camelot Betrayal

Title: The Camelot Betrayal (Camelot Rising #2)

Author: Kiersten White

Publisher: Delacorte Press

Publication date: November 10th, 2020

400 pages

3/5 stars

Goodreads Synopsis

Everything is as it should be in Camelot. King Arthur is expanding his kingdom’s influence with Queen Guinevere at his side. Yet every night, dreams of darkness and unknowable power plague her.

Guinevere might have accepted her role, but she still cannot find a place for herself in all of it. The closer she gets to Brangien, pining for her lost love Isolde, Lancelot, fighting to prove her worth as Queen’s knight, and Arthur, everything to everyone and thus never quite enough for Guinevere–the more she realizes how empty she is. She has no sense of who she truly was before she was Guinevere. The more she tries to claim herself as queen, the more she wonders if Mordred was right: she doesn’t belong. She never will.

When a rescue goes awry and results in the death of something precious, a devastated Guinevere returns to Camelot to find the greatest threat yet has arrived. Not in the form of the Dark Queen or an invading army, but in the form of the real Guinevere’s younger sister. Is her deception at an end? And who is she really deceiving–Camelot, or herself?

Review

The Camelot Betrayal is the middle book in Kiersten White’s Camelot Rising series, a magical retelling of the King Arthur legend. TCB picks up shortly after The Guinevere Deception ended. We catch up with our favorites for TGD while meeting new characters and going on new adventures.

TCB ramps up the action and the inner turmoil affecting Guinevere and her decision both in the past and throughout this book. TCB really shows some growth for Guinevere as she grapples more with romance, family, and her own history. Arthur’s character also got a tad more fleshed out, along with Lancelot, though I would have preferred even more. I don’t feel like I really understand all the character’s motivations.

I found this book to be paced much slower than TGD, which is a typical middle book experience for me. It spent a lot of time setting up the conflict for the third book instead of focusing on the plot actually happening. I also didn’t expect a lot of what happened in the book, and not in a good way. More like I just didn’t understand the decisions the author made when writing to continue the plot along. The plot continuation and new conflicts introduced in this book didn’t jive well with me.

I am interested enough to read the final book when it comes out to see how it all gets wrapped up. I do like that I’m not at all able to predict how this series could be concluded and where the characters may end up. The lead is very well buried, so for that I commend Kiersten.

Thank you to Delacorte Press and Netgalley for an early copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Happy reading, folks!