Blog Tour: The Camelot Betrayal (Interview + Review + Giveaway!!!)

Happy Wednesday and welcome to my stop on the blog tour for THE CAMELOT BETRAYAL! I’m so excited because today I have an interview with Kiersten White (!!!!) to share with you, AND my review of the book! This book is truly amazing and I’m so so excited to for you to find out more about it, PLUS enter for a chance to win a print copy!

I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

The Camelot Betrayal by Kiersten White
Series: Camelot Rising #2
Also in this series: The Guinevere Deception
Published on November 10, 2020 by Delacorte Press
Genres: Fantasy, Retellings, YA, Queer
Pages: 384
Format: eARC
Source: NetGalley
Add to Goodreads
Author Links: Website, Twitter, Goodreads, Instagram

EVERYTHING IS AS IT SHOULD BE IN CAMELOT: King Arthur is expanding his kingdom’s influence with Queen Guinevere at his side. Yet every night, dreams of darkness and unknowable power plague her.
Guinevere might have accepted her role, but she still cannot find a place for herself in all of it. The closer she gets to Brangien, pining for her lost love Isolde, Lancelot, fighting to prove her worth as Queen’s knight, and Arthur, everything to everyone and thus never quite enough for Guinevere–the more she realizes how empty she is. She has no sense of who she truly was before she was Guinevere. The more she tries to claim herself as queen, the more she wonders if Mordred was right: she doesn’t belong. She never will.
When a rescue goes awry and results in the death of something precious, a devastated Guinevere returns to Camelot to find the greatest threat yet has arrived. Not in the form of the Dark Queen or an invading army, but in the form of the real Guinevere’s younger sister. Is her deception at an end? And who is she really deceiving–Camelot, or herself?

If you’ve ever visited Kait Plus Books before, you probably know that I LOVE Kiersten White’s books! To say that I was excited when I found out I was on this tour, and that I was able to interview her, would be an understatement- I was over the moon excited! The interview is down below my review, but here’s a sneak peek for those of you who can’t wait: Kiersten recommends two of my favorite books to Guinevere and the rest of the Camelot Crew!

In case you missed it, here’s my review for book one in the Camelot Rising trilogy, The Guinevere Deception. Okay, now for the review! I reread the first book before I started this one, so I was freshly hurt by the betrayal at the end. I went into this book expecting to find out more about Guinevere (and Mordred and Arthur and Merlin and Lancelot and Brangien and Isolde and Tristan and Didrane) and I did– but not as much as I’d hoped. I’m really looking forward to finishing the third book so that I can finally understand everything that’s happened in the first two. Basically, I want to find out more about who these characters are, both in terms of this story and the larger Arthurian framework.

DID I LIKE LOVE IT?

YES! One thing that I really loved about this book was the focus on duality, or the idea that things are more than one thing at a time. Which I don’t think I’m explaining very well, so here’s an example: one of my favorite quotes from this book is “Beauty and terror and the wonder that encompasses both.” Kiersten White does a wonderful job showing that things aren’t always what they appear to be. Characters may do horrible things for good reasons, or do good things for terrible reasons, and trying to figure out whether that makes them good or evil is one of the best parts of this book!

FAVORITE CHARACTER?

Okay, so Guinevere is my favorite favorite character, but also I love Mordred, Brangien, Tristan, Lancelot, and Dindrane!

WILL I RE-READ IT?

1000% yes! First of all, because I’ll reread the first two books before I start the third (and sadly, final) book in the trilogy, but also because (just in case you missed this somehow) I LOVE KIERSTEN WHITE’S BOOKS OMG THEY ARE SO GREAT I JUST !!!!!!!!!!!

THREE WORDS TO DESCRIBE THE BOOK

magic, belonging, OHMYGODWHATJUSTHAPPENED (yes, that’s totally one word)

I have two GIFs today! They were both so perfect, I couldn’t not use them.

Do I love this cover? YES! Do I wish there was a special OwlCrate edition so I could see another version of it? Also yes. The colors are BEAUTIFUL, and also I love the fonts and Guinevere’s hair and the water and just basically all of it? 9.5/10 stars!!!

• Legendborn by Tracy Deonn
• Sweet Black Waves by Kristina Pérez
• Once & Future by A.R. Capetta and Cori McCarthy

Let’s talk about View Spoiler » HOW GUINEVERE IS ACTUALLY GUINEVERE????!?!?!? or at least- in Guinevere’s actual body??? I still think the spirit of Guinevere isn’t human, but !!!!!! was not expecting that AT. ALL. I think what really threw me was that whoever she actually is, she had a name. She traded it, but she. had. a. name. That wasn’t Guinevere??? « Hide Spoiler

ALSO View Spoiler » MORDRED!!! HE REALLY CARES ABOUT HER AND I AM SMASHING MY KEYBOARD IN CAPS LOCK TO SAY THAT I REALLY FUCKING LIKE HIM EVEN IF I STILL DON’T NECESSARILY TRUST HIM. ugh. why would you make me have feELinGs?!?!? « Hide Spoiler

Okay, let’s end this on a happier note with View Spoiler » Brangien and Isolde, who are SO FREAKING ADORABLE together! I’m so glad that Isolde was rescued and I can’t wait to see what her role in the story will be as we enter the final chapter! « Hide Spoiler

AND ONE LAST THING- View Spoiler » Kiersten said in the interview that her favorite lines were the last ones, which are

Let the Guinevere that might have been be left behind. They had no idea what she was capable of, but she was finally ready to find out.

and I also love them! « Hide Spoiler

If you could trade lives with any book character for a day, who would it be and why? What about a week? A month, year, or forever?

Sleeping Beauty, so I could go to sleep and wake up a few years from now. Just kidding! Or am I . . . ?

Honestly, though, none. My job allows me to live as book characters whenever I want to, and I quite like that flexibility! Plus, I mostly like reading horror, and I super don’t want any more of that in my reality.

What would you do if you spent the day with Guinevere and the rest of the Camelot Crew? Where would you go to eat, hang out, relax, etc.?

I’d go on a tour of Camelot, maybe visit the arena to watch a few matches between knights. Climb the castle and look over the view while Guinevere, Brangien, and Dindrane fill me in on all the hot gossip. We’d definitely hit a play, and ideally a market festival just to wander around and see what it was like. As far as eating, after all the research I did on food during that general time period, I think I’d fast. . . .

If Guinevere and the rest of the Camelot Crew were to hang out with characters from other YA books, who would they be and why?

They’d hang out with the cast of Legendborn by Tracy Deonn, talking Arthurian powers and comparing notes about how their legends play out. Also, it would mean they could go to a Waffle House, which would blow their minds after the aforementioned bad food of their time.

What was your favorite bit of research you ended up not using?

Giants actually appear in a lot of early Arthurian tales, including one named Ysbaddaden, which is such a great name. There was also a half-giant named Galehaut, who was going to win in a battle against Arthur but was so impressed with Lancelot that he surrendered and became Lancelot’s BFF and, in a deeply queer narrative, died of longing and sadness when falsely informed of Lancelot’s death. Lancelot was later buried next to him. Maybe if I wrote a second trilogy, I could figure out a way to work in a few giants!

What is your favorite quote, scene, or moment from The Camelot Betrayal?

I actually love the final few lines! Which I can’t mention here because of spoilers, but I love the note the book ends on.

What books would you recommend to Guinevere and the rest of the Camelot Crew?

I think they deserve a little joy after all they go through, so to start out with, You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson. Crowns are such heavy burdens in the Camelot Rising trilogy, so I’d love to share this funny, delightful book about a crown with a little less of a commitment. But then, just to make sure they knew it could have been a lot worse, I’d give them my And I Darken trilogy. They got off easy.

Kiersten White is the New York Times bestselling and Bram Stoker award-winning author of the And I Darken trilogy, the Paranormalcy trilogy,  The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein,  Slayer,  The Guinevere Deception, and many other novels. Kiersten lives with her family in sunny San Diego, California, where she perpetually lurks in the shadows.

Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | Goodreads

Enter here for a chance to win a print copy of THE CAMELOT BETRAYAL by Kiersten White!

Have you read this book yet? Do you love it as much as I do? If you haven’t read it yet, is it on your tbr? Let me know in the comments and have a splendiferous day!