Hello everyone!
You know what they say - when you find something that works, stick to it!
As you may or may not have noticed, Serenity Woods has been publishing some cozy mysteries for the last little while under the name Hermione Moon, and her main characters are Gwen and Arthur.
If those names ring any bells at all for you, well, I'm here to tell you why.
It's because they're ACTUALLY King Arthur and Guinevere.
Well, okay, he's not the king - he says so himself - but that's how we modern folk know him.
But there's one more book int this series to look at now and here I am with the review of it for tonight - I haven't had the chance to read it a second time yet because of some real life issues, HOWEVER, I can honestly say that if you've enjoyed the series so far, this one won't disappoint either.
It has our favourite crime-solving duo, stunning locations, more than enough intrigue to keep you going, and a little unveiling at the end that had me grinning like a Jack-o-Lantern.
So, without further ado: Her Wedding Knight!
Links to the previous works in the series (and a couple other of Ms Woods' more supernatural/paranormal ones) can be found at the bottom of the page, as always. The thing with this particular series is that, unlike with some of the author's other books, you need to reed them in order to be able to follow along and know what's happened and what hasn't. But hey, it's super fun!
Especially this time around, when it's Gwen and Imogen's wedding day.
The whole group is staying at Wessex Castle for the wedding because,
hey, historic location and all that, and the girls are both excited -
they're marrying the loves of their lives, so why not, right?
Except
Gwen keeps zoning out and she even PASSES out completely at one point,
not to mention the Prime Minister and his entire cabinet seem to be at
the castle for some sort of conference, and for some reason or other
Gwen has a weird reaction seeing the man.
But that
aside - because she doesn't want to spoil her perfect day even though
her dreams keep telling her otherwise - the wedding itself goes off
without a hitch, the girls get married ...
... and a magical storm is unleashed over the castle grounds.
Because why not, right? Right.
On
top of all that, a fellow archeologist and researcher, who wanted to
speak to Gwen right before the wedding, is found dead at the bottom of
the staircase.
This leaves Imogen to get to work
because the phone lines are out and the police can't get to them before
the storm abates, plus our group is pretty convinced it's of magical
origin which means someone here with magic wants to do them harm.
When
it turns out that the Prime Minister and his people are nowhere to be
seen or heard of, and they take a better look at the tapestry hanging
prominently on display above the main staircase, our group realizes that
the site itself is working against them.
Because guess what.
It's built on top of an ancient burial ground - a ship burial ground, dating right back to Arthur's time.
They
discover someone else wearing the ring that we may remember from the
previous book - connected to Morgana's Sisters, but slightly different,
and it turns out it's Mordred's Knights, which is a bit funny
considering Mordred never existed in this particular storyline, but the
more hands on deck the better, especially as it turns out that the
Knights (like the Sisters) want Arthur.
Everybody and their mother want Arthur.
Well you can't have him, he belongs to Gwen!
Ahem.
Just
when you think things can't get any worse - they discover that the
victim was working on a book dealing with the prophecy that Arthur will
return and protect Britain from invaders, and that the two magical
groups have been working (in secret) on a magical tri-clock that
connects and controls the ley lines and even time since at least World War Two - there's a spell thrown at them.
It hits Gwen.
And puts her out of commission.
Well,
okay, a bit more to clarify: it WOULD have killed Gwen, because she
pushed away everyone else, but Matthew Hopkins - you know, the annoying
journalist with a thing for Gwen who's also descended from a witch but
wants desperately not to be - reaches out with a hand and blocks and
catches most of it.
But their main witch is now
unconscious and they're on their own, so her aunt casts a tracking spell
and they head into the very belly of the beast, following it down
further into the castle where they find a warning written for Arthur
under the tapestry on the wall.
This makes no sense
since that wall stuff has been there for centuries, but Arthur is
determined to save Gwen from whatever danger she's in, so they push
forward, going even further down, under the burial ground, to what looks
to be the gathering chamber for the highest circles of the Sisters and
Knights.
And of course they get captured (by they I
mean Arthur, Christian, Beatrice, her husband, Matthew, and Merlin),
because naturally the man who they've trusted throughout the book is
actually one of the bad guys.
As is Gwen's aunt, Hollie.
But here the plot thickens, as she goes to fetch Gwen from upstairs.
In
Gwen's reverie, we get to see inside her head a little and we actually
witness the first meeting between Guinevere and Arthur when she was
young, wild and free, and her marriage was first arranged. Hollie
reveals herself and explains that she's actually someone we should all know - with Arthur mentioning a scene with holly in someone's dark hair,
I HOPE YOU'VE FIGURED IT OUT BY NOW - and that she's there to help.
She's been the one sending Gwen visions, more specifically the one about
the prophecy, and encourages Gwen that she's far more powerful than she
wants to believe.
She then proceeds to wake her up and
take her downstairs, where she engineers a powerful, complicated spell
with the help of the other witches present.
And when
water breaks through into the chamber to sweep away the Sisters and the
Knights, only our heroes are left standing, at which point Hollie
reveals herself.
She's really Morgana. And she's been
working for centuries to stop the Sisters, a perverted version of the
group she started, and the Knights.
It's revealed that
Morgana has been the driving force behind everything all along, because
the Knights need Arthur for their tri-clock to make it work, which she
can't allow because the ley lines shouldn't be controlled, nor should
time be, at that. She explains she fabricated memories of herself for
Gwen and Beatrice to make them think she was a part of their family when
she actually never was, but most importantly she tells us a bit more
about what happened in Arthur's time.
The king they
were fighting against was trouble, so a plan was hatched to deal with
him, a spell placed inside Arthur so that it would detonate when he was
close enough, but the king himself surprised Arthur and mortally wounded
him. Hollie later figured out the spell would have killed her brother
anyway, which is why she snatched it from him in the underground chamber
before he could use it properly.
She also says that
both she and Arthur knew exactly what they were doing - with time being
basically layered, they knew there was a good chance he might be too
wounded in physical form to have his soul returned to his body, and
Hollie had always planned for it to be much longer anyway, sensing he
would be needed in the future.
And this reveals
something of Arthur as a character because while she was the one who
cast the spell, HE was the one who actually kept himself bound to the
ruby, as a soul's instinct is to separate into particles and move on to
the next plane, so it takes immense, massive willpower to keep yourself
here.
Arthur did it. Because of his love for Guinevere.
It
turns out that all Gwen's doubts are for nothing, and let me explain
those doubts: as the story is revealed, Hollie explains that the
prophecy has actually been changed. She herself went back in time to
change it, making it so that everyone things the 'great bear' is going
to save them, meaning Arthur. Arthur knew this, and willingly agreed to
it, because the truth wasn't one he wanted to live with: it's Guinevere,
or Gwen, who's the focus of the prophecy, the 'white ghost' who will
save them all and be returned to them, and so Hollie sent the Dux Belorum to secure her hand in marriage.
Because naturally, the king was ALSO trying to marry her.
And she needed protecting.
So
even though Gwen initially thinks Arthur married her for protection,
she quickly tosses aside that notion when it becomes clear just how much
Arthur loves her - that he fell in love with her when he first met her,
wanted to protect her for herself alone and not just the prophecy, and
willingly placed a target on his back so that she would stay out of the
crossfire, not to mention kept himself connected to this plane through
the soul-stone so that he could be reunited with her when the time came.
If that isn't true love, I don't know what is.
The
initial murder which sparked everything in the book was actually
committed by the Knights, because the victim wanted to talk to Gwen
about his findings regarding the prophecy, and it's now clear that the
truth will soon be revealed, but for the time being the Knights still
believe they need Arthur for the tri-clock, so our characters have some
breathing room. Hollie goes into hiding, promising to return when
needed, but not before she explains that the spell that took out Gwen
was actually never meant for her - it was for the traitor, but as Gwen
pushed him aside, it was she who ended up biting that bullet. It was thrown
by the wife of one of their archeology friends, at that.
And
with a little bit of magic of her own, because Morgana was the most
powerful sorceress that ever walked, it seemed, Hollie gives Imogen and
Gwen a little gift, sending them off to their husbands for the wedding
night.
Five weeks later, it turns out the gift is extra
special - Arthur explained to Gwen before that he and Guinevere tried
to have children, but suffered numerous miscarriages.
In this moment in time, however, both Gwen and Imogen are pregnant, and with THAT happy note, we leave them to celebrate.
So
if you enjoy mystery, you love Arthur, and you want to see a twist to
the story where Morgana is actually one of the good guys, why don't you
pick this up? You'll have to start with the first book as it's a
continuous story, but I promise you won't regret it. The pacing is
wonderful, there's a smidge of action in each book, the romance is
lovely and the characters really come to life, even the supporting ones
that usually get forgotten in series like these. The writing is very
easy to get into, and, most importantly for me, we get female characters
who don't lose their heads and run off into the blue when someone
crooks a finger at them wrong. Hermione Moon does a wonderful job in
weaving this tale on, and I for one can't WAIT for Christmas and the
next book because, hey, the job isn't done yet. We still have some bad
guys to defeat!
You won't want to miss it.
xx
*image not mine
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