Thank you to NetGalley and Angry Robot for providing an eARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

It was an okay book. I always enjoy a good retelling, and I haven't read a lot of those that tacke the Arthurian tales. While the blurb promised a feminist retelling, it felt like a common fantasy story. The story is told from Nimues POV, but she felt more like an observer than an actual main character with aims and wishes. The book reminded me of a historical novel with added fantasy elements, and unfortunatly the worldbuilding was quite shallow. Pros: this was a quite quick read, and I liked the historical elements with women actually coordinating the household.

First of all, what a spectacular cover! It reminds me of art noveau tarot decks, love it.
I have a bunch of things to say but I'd like to preface with this: I would actually recommend this book specifically to people who likes fantasy and want to start exploring arthurian legends, and even buy it as a gift for someone else (& buy it for my shelves because LOOK AT THAT COVER). It was well written and I did enjoy most of it.
If you're interested in this book, TW for rape and sexual violence.

Now, onto the spoilers:

Asides from some children's books and Disney movies I think this is my actual introduction to Arthurian legends, and it was an okay one. The story is engaging but it did feel lacking in some areas, like world and character building. The pacing is also strange, rushing from episode to episode through actual generations at the side of a seemingly immortal character. More on this later.

Re. the character building: Nimue's current persona is well established and developed but we know almost nothing of her background except for a few lines that explain how she got to serve Ygraine. Her conections to the women she serves feel too thin and disspasionate, too surface level to actually engage the reader - for instance, I would have loved to know why she chose to serve instead of wieilding her power, and why as a maid and not a companion or advisor. Other characters are developed well enough for their roles, although some of them could be removed completely and the story wouldn't change a bit (i.e. Melyas, king Gorlois' squire, and the king himself for that matter) but they do feel alive and complex, especially the women Nimue serves.

Re. the world building: I think someone with a bit more knowledge of Arthurian legends and the general land layout of the area would have been in a better position than me. I still have no clue what the distance was between kingdoms, so Nimue teleporting from point A to point B had zero impact - is it a 100km or a 1000km trip? Who knows! I also would have loved to read more details on the fantasy side of the story - all I know is that there's 'hidden people' that live... somewhere away from mortals, that they wield magic and that they don't like to meddle in mortal affairs. Of the two later magical antagonists, the Lady of the Lake, the Lady of the River, I know nothing except that they're powerful, and located somewhere in the vicinity of a lake and a river respectively. I feel there was so much to expand yet we got so little. Like, who is really Merlin? What does he want, except to save the isles from some vague threat that never fully comes? I know this story is about Nimue and not Merlin, but we're not getting her backstory either!

Lastly, re. the pacing, it didn't give me time to connect with any of the ladies Nimue seems to be attached to. Ygraine went through a terribly traumatic experience and less than a hundred pages later we're ditching her to follow Morgana. Right when I'm warming up to her BAM, we ditch Morgana (who's also a victim of sexual violence) and welcome Guinevere.

My final thoughts are that this story could have been told in two or three parts and the universe expanded on, and we'd have gotten a much better result.

I received a digital ARC from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I'll be honest -- I feel like the blurb for this novel is misleading. I think that more than a female POV is required to make a novel a feminist retelling. Yes, this novel does focus on how several of the women in the Arthurian cycle were treated; several of them were treated poorly and that mistreatment goes on to be their motivation for later choices. Where I think the novel goes wrong is the heavy-handed way in which it recasts most of the male characters of these stories. I think that it's misleading for the blurb to focus on the feminist retelling aspect when to me, this whole story -- told from Nimue's perspective -- is more about the use of magic and the humans who get caught up in that magic.

That's not to say that this is a poorly written book, because it's not. It's just something different than the blurb would have you believe, so I think readers ought to know that before picking it up. There are lots and lots of retellings of the Arthurian cycle out there, and I've read lots of them. This is not the best addition to the genre I've seen, but it's far from the worst.

[3.25 stars rounded down to 3 stars] THE CLEAVING is an Arthurian retelling from Nimue's point of view (POV) that follows the calamaties that arise when mixing magic with mortal fates. This was a highly anticipated read of mine this year that, while chock full of details, fell unexpectedly short of my expectations. However, keep in mind that what didn't work for me may indeed delight others. First up, though, are aspects I appreciated in THE CLEAVING.

Despite my vocality about enjoying Arthurian retellings, I haven't actually read all that many. But each one I've read recently was from a different POV, this time from Nimue's perspective. Though magical like Merlin, she abides by her people's rules and rarely interferes with mortal events. To do so could potentially result in unforeseen circumstances. Merlin, however, has no qualms flaunting his magic to get Arthur to his foreseen position of High King. It was an interesting take to read about a Merlin who is egotistical, hubristic, and unrepentant in his single-minded goal to ensure Arthur becomes king. Other Arthurian retellings I've read paint Merlin as a good, mystical, ethereal character. But the author sheds an alternative interpretation of Merlin's character. He gaslights and cares little for the consequences so long as they justify the ultimate outcome.

Another thing I appreciated about THE CLEAVING is that the author didn't shy away from the manner of Arthur's siring. The general story is that Uther Pendragon desired Ygraine, who was already married to the king of Cornwall. But through Merlin's trickery, Uther slips into their castle and satiates his desire for Ygraine. It seems to me many stories gloss over this part of the legend, for obvioius reasons. It's not a nice act to think about. But McKenna bares the ugly side of the romanticization of the myth. (Note: there is on page rape.)

Since this is an Arthurian retelling, it almost goes without saying that fate is the main theme of this book. The underestimation of women comes in second. Though billed as a feminist retelling, this description is more subtely conveyed in the story. These women act within the confines of medieval society and so can only influence so much. However, despite the female POV, I felt that the characterization of Nimue, and the other women, was superficial.

The author spent a lot of time describing the scenes, most of which was via "tell" rather than "show." These weren't lengthy or incredibly detailed descriptions akin to Tolkien's style. And it's evident that this time period is her expertise. But it's important that an author know what isn't important to include in a story, no matter how much they might want to include it.

I felt that the amount of detail of name dropping and small information dumps didn't do much to build the world or make it approachable for the reader. This name and location dropping might work for those who are quite familiar with Arthurian legend and the geography of the area. But for a casual enthusiast it was difficult to keep track of everyone and every place. There was little preamble for new characters, which made my relationship with the story feel distant. While I don't necessarily need to connect to a character to enjoy the story, I would at least like to understand them. The story doesn't delve into Merlin's motives, nor does Nimue push Merlin for them. It all felt very passive.

I think readers who are very familiar with Arthurian legend might appreciate THE CLEAVING. Or even readers who prefer less about characterization and are more interested in descriptions of courts and various knights of the realm. However, those who seek ethereal descriptions of Tintagel or Camelot might find more enjoyment from other retellings.

I received an e-ARC of The Cleaving by Juliet E. McKenna from Angry Robot and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Cleaving is an account of the Arthurian legends from the point of view of Nimue, an enchantress. It sets out to tell her story and how it intertwines with the stories of other Arthurian women, Ygraine, Morgana, and Guinevere. I didn’t know much about these women and was excited to learn more about them. Spoiler alert: everything that happens to them in this story is bad, and basically covers every trigger warning for violence against women (and violence in general). I would recommend only reading this if you are in the right headspace for despair.

The Cleaving, billed as a “new, feminist retelling” of Arthurian legends, instead feels like a paint-by-numbers retelling from the perspective of a woman the legends often skip over. This could have been very good, but something about the book just fell flat for me. The author is clearly very knowledgeable of Arthurian legends, and The Cleaving often reads more like a dry mythology book with occasional passages of prettily written prose than a historical fantasy novel. There is SO much story to cover, and the plot goes from one woman’s story to the next with little room to fully explore each one. It feels like the author has a list of the stories and legends she wants to include and is ticking them off one by one as the book progresses, rather than there being a natural arc to the story. Nimue is supposed to be that arc, but, as I will come to in a minute, she is not the driving force she is supposed to be. There are also lots of time skips in this book to fit in all the plot points, which, when coupled with the weird pacing, means some events are covered in great detail (pages and pages of Nimue and Merlin fighting in a cave, or of Nimue travelling to Wales, for example), while others like the final battle and the integral political manoeuvrings are brushed over very quickly. The book stops and starts and feels very systematic; it may as well have been “this is the Ygraine Chapter”, “this is the Morgana Chapter”, “this is the Watery Tart Throwing a Sword at Arthur Chapter”, etc.

A lot of the worldbuilding in The Cleaving assumes prior knowledge of Arthurian legends (which I suppose is fair enough if you’re reading a book about Arthurian legends), but if you’re thick like me and only really know what you’ve half-remembered from the BBC show Merlin or flashes of Monty Python sketches, you can expect to feel a little bit lost. What worldbuilding there is is vivid and incredibly descriptive; the author brings the world of Logres to life and clearly knows her Arthurian onions, so it’s such a shame there wasn’t more of it. Some of the historical and geopolitical elements were inaccurate but we’re talking myths and magic here so I’m happy to ignore that on this occasion.

Much like the worldbuilding, the characters are also given brief introductions, and lots of names are presented without context; I spent a lot of time looking up names of people and places mentioned because otherwise I’d have had no idea what was going on. We start with Nimue, an enchantress who has abandoned her community of mysterious magical people to live with Ygraine. As Nimue is the main character and this has been marketed as a fantasy novel so I expected her to use her magic for…something? Anything? Instead, we watch Nimue passively interacting with the world around her; she refuses to use her magic in any meaningful way because there will be negative “three-fold” consequences (the only slight nod to Paganism). Watching her doom spiral to the worst possible outcome of using magic every single time got a bit grating, particularly because she seemed to avoid using magic in case bad things happened, while ignoring the bad things happening in front of her. She does use her magic a little bit, for example by turning into a mouse to eavesdrop. Meanwhile, Merlin (an arsehole) is using his magic to do things like build castles and disguise Uther (a rate-one, ocean-going, copper-bottomed arsehole) so he can carry out atrocities. It seems like there’s one rule for him and one for her, which might be a comment on patriarchal society in middle-ages Britain or might just be a frustrating quirk of the author’s interpretation of the magic system (I haven’t decided yet).

Nimue’s past and background isn’t explored so we don’t know much about the magic. We don’t really find out how Morgana learns her magic, either. This would have been really interesting to read but unfortunately gets hidden by a time skip. None of the characters’ lives are explored other than the brief scenes in which they are useful to the plot. This means there’s no room for thoughts or motivations, and things just sort of happen. There is no sense of anything going on elsewhere when the focus is on one place or person; it’s like the other characters freeze when the page turns from them until they’re activated elsewhere. This is an issue for all the characters, but some (the men) have worse characterisation than others.

Let’s quickly discuss the men of The Cleaving. They are ALL cardboard cutout misogynists and varying shades of arsehole; not one of them has a single redeeming quality. Lancelot showed some promise but then also turned out to be an arse. For a “feminist retelling”, the men were the only characters who drove the plot forward. It didn’t feel like retelling at all when the only difference to your usual Arthurian tale was that the story was being told by a woman who occasionally interacted with other women because of the things the men were doing, instead of a man telling you what the men are doing. Each man ranges from being a basic nuisance to inflicting great trauma, and Nimue interacts with them all in the same passive way, more of an observer than a player.

The story is bleak for the women; their actions feel futile and their lives seem hopeless. They feel like ghosts, with no say in their own lives, no agency, and no ability to change anything. Again, this could be a feminist commentary on what it was like to be a woman in middle-ages Britain, and I think maybe the author intended for it to be that. The reason I don’t think the author has succeeded in her aim is that the female characters all feel flat and two-dimensional, if a little less so than the male characters. Ygraine is dignified and calm, Morgana – the only character I was really interested in – is impulsive and curious, and Guinevere cries a lot. That’s the only characterisation these legendary women are given. From the blurb, I expected them to be friends and to be plotting and scheming together. There are maybe one or two brief scenes of that, particularly towards the end, but the dialogue is dull and uninspiring, and things are usually resolved by Nimue finally deigning to use her magic. You get the briefest snapshot into their lives and then the story moves on to something else a man is doing. It was so frustrating because I was so ready to be immersed in their lives and feel empathy for them and rage with them against the world but instead I only felt the barest flicker of emotion. I didn’t have any trigger warnings going into this book and the things that happened to Ygraine were shocking and awful and maybe I numbed myself to the rest of the book to stop myself feeling too much? That’s probably something to discuss in therapy rather than a book review but hey, you wanted honesty.

If you want a book with a pretty cover that gives you a brief overview of some Arthurian legends told from the perspective of a woman, this is the book for you. I do feel like I know the basic premise of these legends a bit more now, which is a tick in The Cleaving’s favour. I gave it two stars because it was fine and didn’t deserve one star; it was readable, if a little bit boring and disappointing. There might be a clever, feminist message to this book that might have bumped up the star rating, but if there is, I’m too thick to see it. If you want a character-driven historical fantasy about female friendships in the face of an awful patriarchal society, and magical women getting revenge, read something else – and please tell me what you’re reading because that’s the feminist retelling I want to read.

I love a feminist retelling but this one fell short for me. There was nothing special about the writing, the character development and world-building were a bit underwhelming, and overall I had to sort of push my way through this title. It was fine, I think it'll be exciting for certain readers but i'm not one of them.

What if we could see the story of Arthur through female lenses?
That's the premise for The Cleaving, by Juliet McKenna, which sets out to be a retelling of the Arthurian legend, giving its female characters the chance to tell their part in this saga.

The protagonist here is Nimue, and throughout the story, we also meet and learn from the tales of Ygraine, Morgana and Guinevere. We see through their eyes how Arthur took the stage while Merlin worked his magic from backstage, expanding the new king's power and reach.
The story follows somewhat the same line as the original story, but the twist here is that the main male characters, often in the spotlight for its virtues, are now in it for their failings.

While I liked the book fine, I felt it did not live up to what it set out to be.
It had a feminine gaze for sure, but not a feminist one - there was potential for including important discussions on gender and patriarchy, but they mostly did not happen or were very surface-level ones. I was also expecting some minor discussions on religion, as they were an integral part of the original story, but they were not present there as well, and that made the setting/world-building lacking to me.

Overall, it was an enjoyable read, but I would only recommend this book to readers that do not know much about the Arthurian legends and looking to ease into this journey. As it does not bring much political and cultural leanings, it really works best for beginners. If you have already read other materials, such as The mists of Avalon, for example, I believe this book would feel very underwhelmed to you.

Thank you to NetGalley and Angry Robot for providing an eARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

I did enjoy this book but I feel that it fell short in some areas. There were some plot points added that seemed to resolve into nothing or served no purpose to the story. Character development was one of my issues with the story. All the characters were in different stages of development; those not really necessary for the story were fully developed and those integral were slightly developed. The magic was at times was hard to follow and the story felt rushed in certain areas. I think had the book been made into a duology it would've helped with all the issues above.

I want to thank netgalley and angry robot for the opportunity to read The Cleaving in exchange for an honest review.

I was very drawned by the cover and the premise but sadly, I DNFed the book at around 17-20%. I am not usually the biggest fan of Arthurian stories but this feminist retelling looked perfect on paper. However, the writing really didn't work for me and I couldn't really care for the characters.

I believe this book will definetly find its audience if it's better marketed.

I'm a longtime Arthuriana fan, so I loved the sound of a retelling from the perspective of the women, especially from a subject matter expert. I had a difficult time getting into this one, though--the pacing felt pretty slow at the beginning.

I sadly DNFed The Cleaving at 15 percent, but I still want to thank Angry Robot and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

I have to preface this by saying that I am not well versed in Arthurian myth and instead thought this book would develop my understanding of the myth, which it unfortunately did not - this is not an attack on the author’s understanding, simply my own lack of knowledge.

The first few chapters throw a lot of names at the reader that they are presumably supposed to recognize, which lead me to being confused and in desperate need of some sort of overview. I constantly felt like I was lacking information without knowing what kind. The writing didn’t work for me either, as I felt like the parts I read were quite dry and lacked sympathy for readers unfamiliar with Arthurian legend. I was curious about the main character Nimue, her powers and her relationship with Merlin, but this was not enough for me to read the entire story.

I still want to encourage readers to read further reviews of people that belong in the bubble of Arthurian myths and give the book a try as I myself simply don’t feel like I am the intended audience for this book.

I don't know how I feel about this, which in itself should be pretty telling. Ok, I'll admit it: the cover was just too pretty to pass up, so this is partly on me. I also think the writing was fine, but "The Cleaving" isn't what it suggested it was in its blurb. It just wasn't super exciting to read. I think I would have enjoyed this, had I known what I was really getting myself into, so the marketing on this one was rather misleading.

I love Arthurian legends. As a child I found Howard Pyle’s book “The Story of King Arthur and His Knights” in the school library and fell in love with the stories and the fantastic illustrations. I liked the look of the cover of “The Cleaving” so I requested to read it.

The blurb says it’s a feminist retelling of the stories and that also draw my attention.
However, when reading the book, it felt very traditional. Nothing new or particularly interesting happened at all. I guess the timeskips that happens?

All in all, an okay book. Nothing more, nothing less.

Thank you to NetGalley and Angry Robot for my arc in exchange for my honest opinion.

"The Cleaving" is a feminist retelling of the Arthurian legends that follows Nimue, Morgana, Ygrain, and Guinevere's stories. Narratively, we mainly stick with Nimue's perspective and the story begins before Arthur's even born, but follows the "traditional" story to its end. I feel like this wasn't necessarily a feminist retelling. I had no issues with Mckenna's writing which is fine and worked well for the most part. What I have issue with is this being touted as a feminist retelling when I think it does nothing that could be considered feminist, unless you count writing from female characters' perspective as feminist which even then is still questionable in this case. I thought it was a strange choice but likely one to better serve the feminist aspect, that Mckenna chose to present traditionally positive male characters in a negative light? I would have been fine with it if I didn't feel like it was so jarring in comparison with the legends. One last thing on the "feminist" aspect was that there wasn't anything done on Mckenna's part to explore feminist themes with any of the characters. Like at all. All of this made for a massively underwhelming and disappointing reading experience.

The book itself is supposed to be a fantasy and I just did not get that from any part of the story. There's like no representation of paganism anywhere in the book so there was essentially nowhere for magic to be connected to that. Druids? Basically nonexistent. Their people are present in the book through Nimue but that's it. I loved reading the Arthur stories as a kid and as an adult, I still love it but this? For me there was no connection to the Arthurian legends other than characters and story beats.

Overall, I would not recommend this to anybody familiar with the Arthurian legends. If you like magic in your fantasy, definitely would not recommend this one.

3 ⭐️

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book is told in the third person from Nimue's perspective and while I don't think this book can be considered a feminist retelling of the legend, it's still a solid novel for the fans.

Plot

As I said previously, this book is told from Nimue's perspective and the reader sees some events before King Arthur and during his reign.

I always thing that standalones are not the best way to tell this story. King Arthur story is very complex, full of different events and with many different characters, trying to fit all that into one book may lead to a mess. I would prefer if this book was a duology or even a trilogy and I would love to see other POV from other women. Some events felt really rushed, especially the last battle.

Characters

The characters could have been so interesting, but they felt one-dimensional. Nimue was the only one that was developed. Ygraine, Guinevere and Morgana were two-dimensional. Ygraine didn't reached her full potential, Guinevere was always weeping and Morgana could have been so interesting, but she wasn't developed.

The men were even worse. Lancelot barely appears, Mordred only appears in the end and I was confused with this hatred for Arthur. Arthur was better than some versions, but he could have been more developed as well.

Writing

The writing was actually good. I liked it and I like some her descriptions about the middle ages.

World-Building

This book has magic, Nimue and Merlin have magic, but I was so confuse. How Morgana learned magic? What are Merlin and Nimue's people? How their magic works? I had many questions in this part that the author never managed to answer.

I like the way she represented the Middle Ages. I can't consider this book a feminist retelling, because these women to nothing for the most part of the book, but the author made a good job when she tries to explain how hopeless a woman's life was in the past.

Final Thoughts

While it's not my favorite arthurian retelling is still a novel that I think every Arthurian Legend fan should try.

Another retelling of the Arthurian legend but this time from the female perspective. All the characters Nimue, Ygraine,,Morgana and Guinivere this is their story. A slow burner a good read but it could have been so much more. Too much time spent on the history . Nothing new so disappointed.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC in return for giving an honest review.

The Cleaving is a retelling of the Arthurian myth which unfortunately didn't involve me as hoped.

Everything is handled rather superficially. From the characters, to the worldbuilding to the story itself. Inconsistent character developments and gaps in detail in the worldbuilding, didn't help.

Such a shame! But thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for letting me read the e-arc.

This is a feminist retelling of the Arthurian legend from the viewpoint of Nimue.but concentrating not only on Nimue herself, but also Ygraine, Morgana and Guinevere in a world where women have little control over their own destinies. This puts a different spin on Ygraine marrying Uther, the man who killed her husband; on Nimue’s battle with Merlin, on Morgana’s use of dark magic, and on Guinevere’s ill-fated attraction to Lancelot. Together the four women have a voice and can change their world. Juliet McKenna knows her folklore and this works through the various well known plot points, but in a completely different way. Highly recommended.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

I was such a fan of the Arthurian legends when I was younger - “Quest for Camelot” as a child, and the TV show “Merlin” as a teen. So, I was enthusiastic going into this novel.

While it was a little dry at times, I found Nimue a compelling narrator, and was glad to see the stories of the Pendragon court throughout her lifetime. I found it a unique and magical take on the age-old stories we are so familiar with.

Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC of this book. I was asked by the publisher to wait until March 1st to leave a review. As one other reviewer noticed this may not be the book for Arthurian retelling lovers who like comedy in the vein of Gwin and Art are not in love, or the TV show Merlin however, it would be a good read for those who are fans of the show Nimue or the Mists of Avalon. It’s a lot of prose dedicated to nuances of the “dark ages” of the UK, which, if you’re a history buff like the author, you’ll enjoy! It’s all told through Nimue’s perspective, so one is granted her insights and thoughts about the other characters. The ending was one of the flattest disappointments for me. The second to last page also ruined the feminist perspective reading by having Nimue wax eloquent about “here’s what the story was about.” So cheesy and unnecessary. Overall a huge recommendation to those who can’t get enough of Arthurian legends—this one does a good job resurrecting the king and putting his patriarchy and the patriarchy of the time, in its place.
TW: graphic rape and non-consensual touching/grabbing and general horrible gender stereotypes