Unapologetic Reviews

I read The Knave and the Moon by Rachel Gillig as my September 2026 Pick of the Month. I chose it because it is the second and final book in the Stonewater Kingdom duology, following The Knight and the Moth , which I read last year. I gave that first book three stars. It was fine, but I found Sybil frustrating, particularly because so much of the story revolved around a quest whose eventual destination seemed obvious to me long before it became obvious to her. She kept insisting on things that I was already fairly certain were wrong, and after a while, watching her slowly catch up became more irritating than suspenseful. So I went into The Knave and the Moon with some trepidation. I wanted to know how the story ended, but I was not particularly confident that I was going to enjoy getting there. Surprisingly, I liked this one considerably more. I gave it four stars. It is not quite in my five star, I am going to think about this forever and recommend it to everybody category, but it d...

The Knight and the Moth by Rachel Gillig is the first book in the Stonewater Kingdom series , and it sits firmly in that popular romantasy space that I usually approach with caution. I am not a big romance reader. I did read a few this year, mostly by my current favourite fantasy author, R.A. Sandpiper , but romantasy as a genre often loses me. This book, however, intrigued me for one specific reason: its focus on religion and belief. 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 scepti...