Review: Gwen and Art are not in Love

 

I really really liked this but I seriously needed it to be a duology or something. Not because I want more of the story after it ended, but because it got so rushed at the end and it would have been massively improved by just letting it be two books. It has two main elements that are, of course, deeply interwoven. The premise of the book is that a cult popped up through England’s early history who believed that one day King Arthur would return and take his place as ruler of the country, bringing magic back with him. This group is in political conflict with the dominant Catholic Church, which backs Gwen’s father’s right to the throne. Art’s father is a cultist, and Gwen and Art were arranged to be married as children to create ties between the two groups. So that’s one element of the book: a sort of political intrigue storyline.

The other element is the relationships between Gwen and the knight she’s been obsessed with for years, Gwen and Art, and Art and Gwen’s brother, Gabriel. These relationships were all absolutely wonderful to read about and tackled some important themes. Unfortunately, they took a backseat to the first storyline in the fourth quarter of the book, and their resolutions felt forced and overly perfect because they weren’t given the room to resolve naturally. This was really frustrating to me because there were serious issues with each relationship that needed to be talked through, and those conversations just sort of got skipped over. Making it into a two-book series would have given all the storylines room to resolve naturally, as well as explore some of the elements that were mentioned but never fully explored. I realize this sort of YA romance is typically a standalone, but I think in this case a duology would have been appropriate, and readers would have been happy to read another – I know I certainly would have been. All of this is not to say it’s bad or not worth reading, because it was definitely really lovely and heartwarming; just a bit of a missed opportunity.

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