The Knight and the Moth by Rachel Gillig (The Stonewater Kingdom, #1) * * *
The story takes place in a fully imagined fantasy world with an established religious system at its core. The main character, Sybil, is “the moth”. She is a Diviner who repeatedly drowns in ritualistic ceremonies, experiences visions, and has those visions interpreted for others. Through this, she functions as a mouthpiece for prophecy. She also happens to be living inside what is very clearly a cult. A large part of the book can be read as a slow realisation of that fact, and a painful disentangling from it.
Enter Roderick, the knight. He is sceptical, grounded, and resistant to belief. Naturally, the two of them fall in love. There are no surprises there. The romance itself did not bother me as much as I expected it to. It was present, it was central, but it was not aggressively intrusive. I would not call it compelling, but it was tolerable, which for me is already something of a compliment.
Sybil, however, was not a character I particularly enjoyed spending time with. She has strong qualities. Her genuine care for the other Diviners is her main motivation and the most sympathetic part of her character. That loyalty carries her through the story. At the same time, she is painfully dense. I understand that she has been indoctrinated. I understand that she has lived her entire life inside this belief system. Even so, there were moments where the narrative was practically shouting at her, and she still failed to connect the dots. That frustration builds, and it does not entirely dissipate.
There is also a training sequence, because apparently modern fantasy requires one. This particular one did not work for me at all. It felt rushed, illogical, and frankly silly. I listened to this as an audiobook, and I suspect I skipped ahead slightly during this section simply out of irritation. The narration itself, by Samantha Hydeson, was perfectly fine. Nothing remarkable, nothing distracting. Solid and competent.
Overall, the book was engaging enough that I did not abandon it. I did pause it, read a few other things, and then returned, but I finished it. That alone already places it above many books I picked up this year. Unfortunately, the ending is where my goodwill largely evaporated.
There is a twist. I did not see it coming, and I will give the book credit for that. The problem is not that it is predictable. The problem is that it is tired. This is a twist that has been used many times before, including in very old works, and once it is revealed, it feels disappointingly familiar. In fact, it has been used in another romantasy very recently. It made me wish the author had taken the existing groundwork and gone in a bolder direction. An unseen force. An unnamed entity behind the belief system. Something stranger, colder, and less well-worn.
What troubles me most is not even the twist itself, but what it implies for the rest of the series. I genuinely do not know where the story can go from here in a way that would interest me. I might try the second book. I might not. I am very comfortable with DNFing things these days, and I will not force myself if it does not grab me quickly.
In the end, this was a three-star read for me. Not offensive, not memorable, occasionally engaging, frequently frustrating, and ultimately underwhelming. It did not annoy me enough to quit, but it also did not earn my enthusiasm. Sometimes, that is the most damning verdict of all.
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