10 must-read new SFF book releases to cozy up with this November
By Lacy Baugher
The Camelot Betrayal – Kiersten White
The second installment in author Keirsten White’s female-focused Camelot Rising series, The Camelot Betrayal continues the story of Queen Guinevere, who in this version of the story is a magical changeling who has taken over the life of a dead woman to protect King Arthur and the kingdom her rules.
Guinevere, a character who is far too often only remembered for the affair that ruined her marriage, is reimagined here as complex woman with serious magical power of her own. Torn between a past she can’t remember and a future that requires she be someone else, this installment is full of soul searching and struggle, as Guinevere tries to figure out who she was, so that she can decide who she wants to become.
The official synopsis describes the story in a bit more detail.
"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?"
The Camelot Betrayal is available on November 10.