Spear

Locations
Call Number: Fantasy / Griffith, Nicola, Adult Book / Fiction / Fantasy / Griffith, Nicola
On Shelf At: Downtown Library, Malletts Creek Branch, Westgate Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Fantasy / Griffith, Nicola	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Malletts Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Fantasy / Griffith, Nicola	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Westgate Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Fantasy / Griffith, Nicola	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Traverwood Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Fantasy / Griffith, Nicola	4-week checkout	Due 05-05-2024

"The girl knows she has a destiny before she even knows her name. She grows up in the wild, in a cave with her mother, but visions of a faraway lake come to her on the spring breeze, and when she hears a traveler speak of Artos, king of Caer Leon, she knows that her future lies at his court. And so, brimming with magic and eager to test her strength, she breaks her covenant with her mother and, with a broken hunting spear and mended armour, rides on a bony gelding to Caer Leon. On her adventures she will meet great knights and steal the hearts of beautiful women. She will fight warriors and sorcerers. And she will find her love, and the lake, and her fate"-- Provided by publisher.

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

Booklist Review
Publishers Weekly Review
Summary / Annotation
Author Notes

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

three stars submitted by LatitudeB on June 12, 2022, 10:08am On the surface, this is everything I love in a book (queer Arthurian retelling! Welsh Arthurian retelling! sapphic!), but it really unfortunately felt like it Was Not For Me, which I don’t think was any particular fault of the book itself, it was honestly probably just the fact that it is Finals Week and also Migraine Week for me. I think if you liked Cursed which was an Arthurian retelling on Netflix that premiered at the start of the pandemic, you’ll really like this book, but I couldn’t get into that for similar reasons (it was the start of a pandemic and I was very stressed about it). Three stars but like, I’m sad about it. Rating systems suck.

New take on Arthurian legends submitted by Jen Chapin-Smith on June 21, 2022, 1:06pm Every generation re-tells the Arthurian legends. Nicola Griffith does this in a fascinating way. In this novel, Sir Peretur (the original Welsh version of the name Perceval) is a half-human half-god woman who disguises herself as a man in order to become a Knight of the Round Table. The book relies heavily on Celtic mythology. Peretur, we learn, is the daughter of Sea God Manannan Maclir, one of the Tuatha de Dannan (ancient Celtic Gods and Goddesses) and a human woman who stole the sacred Cauldron from him and drinks from it in order to stay young. She raises her child in secret and seclusion until Peretur decides she must set out to make her own way and establish her independence. After joining Knights, she and others set out to find the Holy Grail.
Peretur has multiple liaisons with women, making this a Queer romance as well as a fantasy novel. The novel also makes plain that Guinevere, Artos/Arthur and Llanza/Lancelot are a three-some. While they keep this quiet, neither Artos nor Llanza act jealous of each other. An understanding of Celtic Paganism will help the reader understand the significance of the objects Peretur and Nimue hide from mortals. The novel also incorporates the syncretism of the era when Celtic religion and Christianity. The book also includes characters who are People of Color. Modern-day readers may forget that there were indeed People of Color in Europe in the Middles Ages, although TV, films and novels rarely include them.