Rating: 
Summary: A Waste of Time
Review: I love Arthuriana and am always interested in any new take on the legend. I was happy to find this book at the library...until I started reading it. I wish I could give it zero stars, but Amazon doesn't allow that.
Previous reviewers have already pointed out everything I found bad about the book (character inconsistencies, poor writing, etc.) I did finish the book (stupidly hoping beyond hope that it would improve) so I feel comfortable advising people looking for an entertaining read to avoid this. If you're interested in Guenevere I'd recommend Nancy McKenzie's "Queen of Camelot" or Sharan Newman's series. I would also recommend Helen Hollick's series for those looking for a telling devoid of magic.
Rating: 
Summary: Guenevere Gets 3 and 1/2 Stars
Review: Miles's take on the Aruthurian legend is a nice, cozy book of romance and magic with a strong female lead who is just starting to come into her own power. In this book, which I'd categorize as 'light fantasy', Miles has a pro-female version of the Arthur tale with interesting, if slightly stereotypical characters (Arthur is almost the perfect king and easily attracts followers, Guenevere gets mad at men for taking over, but half the time wishes for one to rescue her) and well-crafted storylines. I found this book to be a pleasant read, but due to the lower ratings they received, I'm not sure I will continue to read Miles's Guenevere series - Nancy Mackenzie's novels on the subject are much better and I highly recommend The Child Queen to any Guenevere/Lancelot/Arthur fan.
Rating: 
Summary: You'll hate the characters
Review: This book did not live up to its hype. It tries to do for Guenevere what Mists of Avalon did for Morgan le Fey, but it fails sorely because the title character is an embittered shrew. The plot repeats itself endlessly over the course of three novels. Guenevere loves Arthur, she hates Arthur, she forgives Arthur, she loves Arthur again, no wait, she hates him.... Arthur, by the way, is a weak, feeble-minded, doddering simpleton. This is not the great king of Arthurian legend at all. Lancelot is still a tasty dish, but there is no apparent reason why he would love a bitter, jealous, middle-aged woman who repeatedly casts him away. Morgan le Fey starts out as a promising character, but becomes a demonic harpy-type creature. And the tone is excessively anti-Christian. I'm not a religious person at all, but even I was offended by the way Christians are depicted in this novel. It's just not a pleasant read. If you want a great trilogy told from Guenevere's point of view, read Persia Woolley's Guenevere trilogy or Nancy McKenzie's Queen of Camelot. They're well worth the time and effort.
Rating:
Summary: "All the World Loved Us and We Loved Each Other"
Review: The literary world is crammed packed full of books surrounding Arthurian lore - so many in fact that it could very well be a genre of its own. The problem concerning this however, is that because the main events, characters and storylines are already set out in the mythology, authors cannot tamper with them...at least not too much. This poses the challenge to present the story in an original way, and the latest trend seems to be taking a character and telling the story through their point of view. Obviously Rosalind Miles has done this with Guenevere.
In her version, the city of Camelot already exits in Guenevere's home country, the Summer Country. It is a matriarchal society that worships "the Goddess", where the Queens choose their own husbands, but then take a champion/lover every seven years. "Queen of the Summer Country" chronicles the Arthurian lore from the time of her marriage to Arthur, the birth and death of their son, his adulterous affair with his half-sister Morgan (here chronologically placed *after* their marriage rather than before), Guenevere's meeting with Lancelot, her kidnap by her kinsman Malgaunt, and the beginning of her affair with Launcelot.
In reading "Queen of the Summer Country", I couldn't help but feel that Miles had read Marion Zimmer Bradley's more popular novel "The Mists of Avalon" and decided to take Bradley's version of a pious, simpering Guenevere and make her a "strong woman." The result is not a success. Miles's Guenevere is a thoroughly unlikeable heroine; bad-tempered, narrow-minded bitter, resentful and given over to long-winded trains of thought that usually concern how much she loves Arthur/Launcelot or how much the Christians suck. She gets worked up when Arthur makes even the tiniest decision without consulting her first, and yet gets annoyed when he appears too dependant on the advice of others (namely Merlin).
The supporting cast fares no better: Arthur starts out strong, but soon becomes a depressed and spiritless king, Merlin is a lecherous man, and Lancelot is a nitwit who is forced to say: "the glory of the spring shines in you alone and the splendor of the stars live in your eyes." Ugh. Furthermore, Miles unfortunately makes their relationship begin with love at first sight, rendering it completely implausible.
The story and language is riddled with inconsistencies. For example, Arthur is declared the father of Morgan le Fay's unborn child - completely ignoring the fact that Miles also had Morgan sleeping with Sir Lucan at the same time. No one suggests that Mordred might be *his* son. Language-wise, the thoughts and situations of the characters are all over the place: when Guenevere first meets Lancelot we are told "She loved him and there was no turning back." Yet in the very next paragraph we are told "She could not, she did not, and that was the end." Huh? Did we miss something?
Another similarity with "The Mists of Avalon" is Miles's treatment of the Christian faith. Now I'm not saying that Christianity was a completely faultless religion, but to portray it in such a black light is at first offensive, and then just plain silly considering the hypocrisy that comes into play. Miles contrasts it to the "better" religon - the worship of the Goddess, which is described as loving and tolerant. Yet they display little of either of these traits (unless you count all the sex they have).
Guenevere in particular holds extreme intolerance against the Christians, responding to their mere presence with aggression and scorn. Even Bradley's novels were more lenient than this - she described the two religions as simply two alternative ways of worshiping the same thing; Miles presents them as two utterly incompatible, opposing factions. We are supposed to believe that there are actually two deities at work in the world - the Christian God and the Mother Goddess, for at one stage she declares: "The Father God - the enemy of the Mother, foe of foes." Even the most self-righteous neo-pagan will be uncomfortable with this representation of both their own and Christian religion.
With this comes the inevitable males vs. female conflict, with all women (except the Christian Abbess of course) as the victims, whilst the men are the ugly, evil oppressors. Women are allowed extreme sexual freedom (Guenevere actually looks upon those that don't have this as "wretched virgins") and one man is seen as the ultimate bad guy by trying to restrain his wife from taking a lover. But you should see the rumpus made when a man is unfaithful to a woman...
Miles also has a rather weird obsession with woman's nipples - every time she describes a woman you can be sure the shape, size and colour of her nipples will be discussed.
Ultimately, I have yet to find "my" Guenevere on the page as I see her in my mind - beautiful, noble and tragic. She certainly wasn't in this book.
Rating:
Summary: Not the best retelling
Review: As a fan of the Arthurian legend, I picked this book to read another take on the legend of Camelot. Unfortunately, I was pretty disappointed. This retelling centers around Guinevere, the Queen of the Summer Country, a strong willed individual who marries Arthur to help her people. I admired Guinevere for about the first third of the novel and then slowly I tired of her. Same went for Arthur. He was depicted as he always is, manipulated, romantic, and weak.
I found myself struggling to finish this book and knew for sure at the end of the book that I wouldn't be reading the rest of the trilogy. Bottom line: avoid this retelling and go read The Mists of Avalon instead.
Rating:
Summary: Strong Guenevere for a change
Review: Yet another retelling of the classic Arthurian tale. This book is the first in a trilogy and includes Guenevere's early years, her marriage to Arthur, and her torrid love affair with Lancelot. This time, Guenevere is perceived in a much different light than her usual beautiful yet not-so-bright and weak stereotype. Instead, she is the powerful daughter of a "Mother-Right" line of queens who fought in battle at the sides of her knights. She is a strong woman who is "saved" by her champion Arthur at her Queening from her evil uncle Malgaunt who wants to take Guenevere for his own. But as the story progresses, her strength as a queen gets quickly overshadowed by her husband Arthur. As with a number of other female-centered retellings of the story, Arthur is a weak man who is easily influenced by outside forces (first Merlin and then the Christian monks) and doesn't appreciate the brilliance of his wife. Lancelot is written as a rather soppy character who seems too young and too innocent in his views of the world, which was kind of disappointing. All the other stories I have read so far always give him a strong, yet kind, personality who was willing to sacrafice everything he had for his Queen. Here, he is still willing to sacrafice everything, but he seems more of a boy mentally than a man and seems rather...wishy-washy.I did enjoy most of the content of the book and it was well written. One thing that did bother me was the constant switching to thoughts in the middle of the story. It made things more confusing to figure out not only who was doing the "thinking" but also distracted for the storyline a bit. Otherwise, it was a decent read though I've found other books out there on the subject to be much more enjoyable.
Rating:
Summary: Really dull, irritating and horrible
Review: I have lost track of the number of Arthurian retellings I've consumed in 30-odd years of insatiable reading. I have no problem that there are so many out there; the Matter of Britain is one of the central mythologies of Western European culture. But I really expect that a writer who feels moved to deal with the subject should have something new to say. Rosalind Miles really doesn't and what she does say is so superficial, characterless and just plain wrong that this book is a trial for an educated person to read. Here we have Gunevere presented as a Pagan Celtic Queen of a Matriarchal tradition (a la Persia Woolley's books). I have no problem with this idea. But it becomes obvious fairly early on that Ms. Miles doesn't actually know anything about Pagan religions, either modern or ancient, besides the names of the holidays and the fact that women practice(d) some kind of sexual freedom. I tried hard to say "this is only a fantasy novel," but I happen to know that a great many people take what they read about such things in novels as absolutely true. So when Ms. Miles related that Imbolc--a Pagan spring holiday celebrating new life and healing--was sacred to the "dark maiden of death" I about blew a gasket. That was one problem. Next was that the book is utterly ungrounded in any timeframe. Although it goes back to Welsh tradition, most of the Arthurian legend we are familiar with is based on 12th & 13th century French romances. The fashion currently is to draw on the older sources and try to find a possible historical basis, making Arthur a Roman Legionary, a Celtic Warrior King, or anything else that would potentially be possible for a dark ages leader of about the 6th century. Rosalind Miles chose to ignore this and her work harks back to Mallory in its castles, tournaments, and code of chivalry. I am not categorically opposed to this. But trying to merge a Middle Ages sentiment of that sort with a Neo-Pagan Matriarchal basis Just Didn't Work. It was very jarring and, rather than gving a new interpretation of the events, it just made them seems arbitrary. Another thing that really bothered me was the way Ms. Miles jumps around in time without regard to events and without letting the reader know what's going on. One minute it's Beltain and the next it's midsummer, seemingly without transisiton. One day Arthur's setting out to deal with the infant Mordred and when he returns a week later Mordred appears at a tournament seven years old or so. No one seems to remark on this. I could go on about how flat the characters are and how, although she seems to try to give people basis for their actions, Ms Miles' falls far short of the mark when it comes to creating real, believable situations. Most of the action is sensationalist. I get that the Matter of Britain deals with a lot of sensational stuff like rape and incest. But I'm looking for more than the bare bones these days. If you've never read any reimagining of Arthurian myth, this book may not actually annoy you. It won't really teach you anything, either. I'd recommend giving it a miss. There's a thousand better boks on the subject than this travesty. I'd give it zero stars if I could.
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