The Knight and the Moth, by Rachel Gillig
It’s funny how, if you’ve read at least one book by an author who wrote something you love, even if you’ve read something else by that same author that you did not love, you can still get excited for a new release, hoping that it will harken back to the magic of that one beloved book.
Such was the way for me and “The Knight and the Moth.”
“One Dark Window” is, and still remains, one of my favorite books of all time. It ticked off multiple boxes for me (heroine, hero, tropes, magic system). I was disappointed (seriously so) with “Two Twisted Crowns”, but only because it focused so heavily on something that wasn’t really central at all to what I considered the best aspect of the first book: The story of the Shepherd King and the origin of Providence Cards.
I found “The Knight and the Moth” to be disappointing to me in a way that you never want a book to be disappointing, i.e. so boring that almost everything about it left your brain as soon as you finished reading it. Or, you stop caring about the sequel you know is already coming before you even finish reading the book you have in your hands.
The magic system and the world here weren’t exactly bad, but I definitely think they were hurt by the things that depended on them, like the characters and plot.
The characters are bland to the point that I knew within a few chapters that if all of them were dead by the end, I would scarcely care.
The plot and story itself was so typical that any plot point that was supposed to be dramatic was telegraphed with all the subtlety of a freight train coming at you head-on. There’s foreshadowing, and then there’s standing on the beach watching as the meteor that signals your destruction gets closer and closer until BOOM, it’s all over.
You won’t be shocked when the main characters get together, despite the fact that we are told multiple times how much Six/Sybil can’t stand Rory. You won’t be shocked when you find out what’s under a Diviner’s shroud. You won’t be shocked when multiple people who are supposed to be good turn out to be not-good.
I would even go so far as to say that you won’t be entirely shocked when you find out who the gargoyle that you thought was nothing more than an annoyingly unfunny example of comic relief is Not Who He Appears To Be. The only positive on that point is that it took me a little longer to figure that out than any of the other things previously mentioned.
I guess it’s another positive to say that I disliked this book so much only because I’ve already seen evidence that Rachel Gillig is capable of more. That doesn’t erase the fact that I hated Sybil and Rory almost as much as I loved Elspeth and Ravyn, and that even with a fairly interesting magic system and world surrounding them, I wasn’t even able to enjoy that because I was forced to watch these two insufferable people navigate said magic system and world for 300+ pages.
I think my biggest complaint about this book is that it looks like the tropes (enemies to lovers, badass FMC, snarky brooding MMC) drove the plot more than the world pushing them towards some inevitable conclusion or another.
In all honesty, I think when I love a book, it’s because it features tropes I like in a world that would be just an interesting without them. The review tagline for this book, for reference, is:
From New York Times bestselling author Rachel Gillig comes the next big romantasy sensation, a gothic, mist-cloaked tale of a young prophetess forced on an impossible quest with the one knight whose future is beyond her sight. Perfect for fans of Jennifer L. Armentrout and Leigh Bardugo.
It perhaps would have been more appropriate to just say “If you love enemies-to-lovers featuring badass, overpowered lady warriors that snipe back and forth with their guyliner-wearing floppy haired rival up until they pause in their overly detailed descriptions of said floppy haired guy’s v-line or happy trail long enough to realize ‘I really want to fuck this guy’, and then they fuck, this book is for you.”
I hate hate hate to say that this book is glaringly typical, but unfortunately that’s what it is. It’s why I think it seems to be getting so much more traction with the “romantasy” crowd. It’s why it appears that the folks that were as disappointed with with ODW are much more enamored of this. .
It meets the expectations of the genre: It’s a romance first, and a fantasy second. It delivers on the promise that appears on the covers or flaps of almost any fantasy romance book published these days.
ODW was a fantasy with romantic elements that has been unfortunately advertised under the Romantasy with a capital R heading to the point that people are seriously let down when they realize there’s hardly any sex or smut or interaction between the two main characters at all. That’s only made clearer by how often people that disliked ODW, only to finish the duology and wind up absolutely loving TTC.
It’s the same situation with The Folk of the Air books. Those are not romantasy books. They are fantasy books that feature a romance. If you want a romantasy, I would NEVER recommend One Dark Window or the Folk of the Air. I would recommend this book or Two Twisted Crowns.
It’s all a matter of perspective. Romantasy as a genre is fairly clear. Somewhere along the way though, people decided that any book featuring characters that fall in love/kiss/have sex in worlds filled with unicorns and fairies is automatically a Romantasy.
I would go so far as to say that a Romantasy book requires explicit sex whereas a fantasy with romantic elements may feature it, but could just as easily imply that characters sleep together instead of actually showing it.
That’s not a bad thing to want that, but it is kind of shitty to slap a label on something just to sell some books. It sets people up for disappointment when reading books that they might have loved if only they had a better indication of what they were getting into.
That said, I still would have disliked this book, because Sybil and Rory are little more than mad-libs of romantasy characters, and I know from reading One Dark Window that Rachel Gillig can do better. I hope she’d writing what she wants and not what she thinks people want to read. I hope she wouldn’t be insulted by me saying that.
I also hope she wouldn’t be insulted by the fact that I have zero intention of reading book two in this series. Unless Sybil and Rory get crushed beneath the weight of crumbling castle walls. I’d very much be interested in that.
And before anyone tries to call me out on character-driven vs. plot-driven stories, I’m well aware that “The Knight and the Moth” might well have been the former. My whole point is that the characters suck, and I’m of the opinion that true romance (and therefore romantasy) is character driven by default, so make sure they’re not boring wet-towel caricatures before you go writing a whole-ass book around them.
Keep It To Your Shelf 