Welcome back to White Rose of Avalon, my Darlings. Today’s blog post is a review of The Guinevere’s Tale Trilogy by Nicole Evelina, which I have just re-read for the first time since reading it five years ago! This is a fantastic trilogy of novels written by an author who truly adores Guinevere and crafted the plot with the utmost love and respect for Guinevere. As a sidenote, I read the books bound together in one volume, but they are also available as individual books, which I find nice, as it is left up to the preference of the reader to choose the format!
The books deftly look at all aspects of Guinevere’s character and bring in many different variants of the legends as inspiration. You have Guinevere being taught on Avalon as a Priestess, and lots of beautifully rendered Pagan and Polytheistic Rituals. While in Avalon, Guinevere’s rivalry with Morgan le Fay is shown, as is her early romance with a future Knight of the Roundtable (but not Lancelot, as he only enters the picture later). This means that the story shows Guinevere in three important romantic relationships over the course of the trilogy. Beyond that, we get to see Guinevere’s life long before she became Queen and even a good bit after Arthur’s death (we get essentially half of the final book, over 100 pages to see what happens to Guinevere after Arthur dies)!
The novels cover very heavy topics at times, but it is done so with much depth of empathy and compassion. Part of the brilliance of this choice to cover sensitive subject matter is that the whole trilogy is told from Guinevere’s perspective. This means that we are not just witnessing traumatic events in her life; we are living these events out with Guinevere! I find this to be a truly beautiful and powerful way to tell her story, as it fully immerses the reader in Guinevere’s mind. However, some of the content is very tough to read, so if you are sensitive, I would look up trigger warnings (which I will not discuss here, as I am keeping this review spoiler-free). I am truly delighted to have been able to re-read this trilogy, as I had remembered loving it the first time I read it, especially with Guinevere being a Priestess and magickal practitioner (as I could certainly relate to that part of the story), and getting to read it again has been such a lovely experience! I actually even purposefully read the book more slowly than I normally would to allow myself to be immersed in the world of this version of the Arthurian legends for as long as possible!
I think I have already made this clear from my glowing review, but I highly recommend this trilogy to all lovers of Guinevere’s story! In the further reading section, I have listed the novels by their individual titles. I hope you have enjoyed this review of this amazing trilogy of novels. Have you read this trilogy? Do you intend to now? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
Note on Image: The image at the top of the post is the cover of the trilogy bound in one volume. I found the picture on https://www.amazon.com/Guineveres-Tale-Trilogy-Nicole-Evelina/dp/0996763287.
LINK TO AVALONIAN ROSE FAERY MYSTERIES PATREON: patreon.com/AvalonianRoseFaeryMysteries
Further Reading
- Daughter of Destiny by Nicole Evelina
- Camelot’s Queen by Nicole Evelina
- Mistress of Legend by Nicole Evelina