Book Review: The Knight and the Moth
The Knight and the Moth by Rachel Gillig
“To the child in each of us, yearning to be special. Take my hand, you strange little creature, and together we shall walk beyond the wall.”
Hello Dear Readers!
Something really exciting happened last week. The Knight and the Moth by Rachel Gillig hit shelves. I have been waiting for this book since it was announced like a year ago. (Maybe more?) I got my hot little hands a copy ASAP and finished it in <48 hours. I had to really slow down because I wanted to enjoy this book, not just speed through it to get the story. Of course, this means I have some thoughts I wanted to share.
I really loved Gillig’s Shepherd King Duology which consisted of One Dark Window and Two Twisted Crowns. The Knight and the Moth is the third (that I’m aware of) published book by author Rachel Gillig. In this third novel I got the sense that she is really kind of “settling in” and mastering her craft. Her prose is beautiful, her settings mysterious, the vibes dark and gothic, and the romantic subplots are superb.
Let’s dive in! Maybe spoilers? I dunno. Probably not. The book has only been out less than a week so I’ll try to keep things non-specific.
“You know this story, Bartholomew, though you do not remember it. I’ll tell it to you as best I can and promise to be honest in my talebearing. If I’m not, that’s hardly my fault. To tell a story is in some part to tell a lie, isn’t it?”
Our story follows Sybil Delling, an orphan who made her way to Aisling cathedral and traded ten years of service for safety and protection. The service required of the orphans who find themselves at Aisling cathedral is to be that of a Diviner. To read the signs and portents from the five gods or Omens that rule the hamlets of Stonewater. In order to do this, Sybil must be drown in the spring that bubbles up from the earth at the center of Aisling cathedral. Once drown, she is pulled from the spring and dreams of signs from the omens.
At the start of our story, Sybil is no longer a small orphan girl, but a young woman nearing the end of her term of service. Her sister Diviners are looking forward to being free of their term and experiencing the world outside the cathedral. With less than two months until they are finished, the new king of Stonewater arrives to have his future divined. Among the king’s knights is Rodrick Myndacious or Rory. Rory shows no respect for the Omens or for Sybil’s talents in Diving, nor the dreams gifted to her by the Omens and the spring.
Eager for the king and his knights to be on their way, things take a turn for the worst when her sister Diviners start disappearing, one after the other each night. Sybil finds herself fleeing the cathedral, seeking help from the new boy-king and his heretical knight Rory, willing to do anything to find her sister Diviners and bring them all back together, no matter the cost.
“I think contentedness,” I said bitterly, “is just a story we tell ourselves.”
The gargoyle nodded. “It is all the same, then. Contentedness. Truth and honesty and virtue. Omens. They are all stories, and we”—he gestured to the Seacht’s climbing walls—“tread the pages within them.”
I found Sybil to be an interesting protagonist. I wasn’t exactly sure I was going to like her at first if I’m being honest. She wasn’t what I expected, and at the start of the story she’s a bit full of herself. After all, being a Diviner is one of the most important positions that anyone from the kingdom of Stonewater can have. And for an orphan, a lowly foundling, to be someone so special, so important… she’s acutely aware of this and it informs her self-importance. And further more, out of all the Diviners, Sybil is the best.
Here, I would like to comment on the dark atmosphere of Gillig’s writing. The Shepherd King duology had it’s moments, but The Knight and the Moth doesn’t hold back. The ritual of Diving involves Sybil getting dressed in ceremonial robes, climbing into a cold spring of fetid water, tasting the blood of the person she is to be divining for, and then getting drowned by the abbess. She is then dragged from the water and from her death like state she speaks aloud the dreams she’s having of the Omens. It’s dark, morbid, and spectacular in terms of setting the tone for the story. Within the first chapter we witness this terrible ordeal and the way that Sybil bears it. So Sybil might behave like a self-righteous bitch at times, but as we learn more about her character we can see why this is justified and appropriate to her character. I might hate the way a character behaves, but if I can understand why a character behaves that way, I’m totally invested.
“If you only ever look up at something, can you ever see it clearly?”
”I suppose not.” I pressed the heels of my palms into my eyes. “But really—I tried to be good. To be a perfect Diviner and do everything the abbess told me to. I never complained, never said no. My worth was written by the rules I followed. But then the abbess called me resentful—a martyr. And maybe I am. But didn’t I become that way because her love cost as much?”
In some books, I think it’s easier to see ourselves as the protagonist than others. In this case, despite feeling like I did not have much common with our dear Sybil Delling, there were a lot of things she struggled with that I felt like I could thoroughly relate to, and therefore found myself rooting for her throughout her adventure. Gillig explores how emotional abuse experienced as a child might affect that person as an adult and their own opinions of themselves and how others see them. She explores the powerhold that faith and religion can have over someone. Gillig also touches on themes of valor and knighthood. If you’re doing the wrong thing for the right reasons, is it still wrong? Are gods only gods because we believe in them and give them the power to be such?
I wouldn’t say that Sybil is an unlikable protagonist, because I am sure there are many, many readers out there who will love her. Rather, I think I found her to be mean-spirited on occasion. The banter between her and Rory is pretty scathing at times. But again, as we delve into the story and explore more of her character, I understand why, and it fits. If you had been someone important and lived with purpose and then had your identity stripped away and learned that everything you believed was a lie, I think that would justify some grumpiness. I feel like there is a delicate balance between making a character with flaws and having them show their flaws in such a way that the audience is still rooting for them, vs making a character that just kind of downs in their flaws and garners no sympathy from the audience. Gillig struck this balance perfectly.
“Her care came with conditions. You bent yourself to fit them, and now...now you see yourself as this terrible burden. Like you’re nothing if you’re not the best, the most useful version of yourself.”
I did not like that. Being so thoroughly charted. “Thereabouts.” ...
”It’s not true, you know,” he said. “You don’t have to be good, or useful, for someone to care about you.”
As I said above, even if I didn’t like Sybil’s behavior at times, I understood it, and I was still rooting for her; I still wanted her to win. She’s a strong character: mentally, physically, emotionally, in very real ways and for very real reasons. To give an example. there’s no training montage, she doesn’t magically learn how to wield a sword and defeat someone bigger, stronger, and more experienced than her just because she’s a bad ass girl boss and the main character. She’s been working as a stone mason in the cathedral when she isn’t busy downing and dreaming, so her weapons of choice are a hammer and chisel. She’s physically strong from lifting rocks and hammering for years. This makes sense. It fits the story. It’s realistic enough that it lends a sense of credibility to the story and makes the world feel real and lived in. It cannot be overstated how much I appreciated that in this book.
“It was early afternoon when I returned to the yard, the knell of swordplay drawing me like Aisling’s beckoning bells.”
I don’t feel like I can comfortably talk much about Rory or about our dear little gargoyle without risking some spoilers, but I think I can say a little.
If Sybil is the lens through which we view love-withheld and emotional abuse, Rory is the lens through which we ponder what makes a good knight, what does it mean to take an oath, and what is valor really? Do the rules mean anything if we don’t agree with them? Is nobility really a matter of birth, or are those who are low-born capable of behaving even more noble than those who bear the title?
I love books that ask these kinds of philosophical quandaries and this book certainly touches on them. I am going to go out on a limb and speculate that the second book will dive a bit deeper into these same questions.
The gargoyle is both profound and absurd and I adore him completely.
“Only, you did not ask to become a Diviner, yet you swore all your worth to Aisling. It would be a sad story, were you to do that again. ... But if you wanted to—I would not blame you. It is easier, swearing ourselves to someone else’s cause than to sit with who we are without one.”
Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I give it:
🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋/5
(Pretend those are moths, not butterflies… ¬.¬ You know, because… Knight and the Moth… I thought moths might be more fun than lobsters just this once. I digress.)
Gillig is rapidly becoming one of my favorite authors. Her books have a certain atmospheric sense to them and I really enjoy her prose and her creative magic systems. I really liked the card based magic of The Shepherd King duology, and the magic in The Stonewater Kingdom series is just as unique and thought provoking. Again, I don’t want to get into it too much because I want readers to be able to experience it for themselves as they read the book for the first time. But suffice to say I appreciate Gillig’s approach to crafting magic systems and the results.
Thankfully The Knight and the Moth does not end on quite the same level of cliffhanger as One Dark Window did, but I will still be very eagerly awaiting the sequel. Till next time dear reader, if you’re looking for something with a bit of an eerie atmosphere, or something that feels like a gothic fairytale, then check out The Knight and the Moth or Gillig’s other books. <3 Tiff
And with that, I leave you with one final quote from the book, because I thought it was too funny not to share.
“An hour later, when the bathwater had gone cold, Maude brought me fresh clothes. Undergarments, two tunics, leggings, wool socks, jerkin. A belt for my hammer and chisel.
Leather shoes.
Strange creatures, shoes. ”
