Enthroned by K.M. Shea
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I love KM Shea books so much. They always have such fantastic characters and make me laugh.

This time it’s a retelling of King Arthur but with the major twist that King Arthur is really Britt Arthurs a girl dragged back to the past by Merlin when the real Arthur runs off with a shepherdess.

Britt originally thinks the whole thing is a wind up and pulls the sword from the stone as a bit of a bet with Merlin. She then decides that actually it must be a dream so why not go with it until it’s time to wake up. As a result she doesn’t take anything too seriously much to Merlin and the knights horror.

Merlin, who in this version is quite young and hot, takes on the role of instructor to Britt and teaches her all about the politics, rules and strategy. This is not particularly exciting to Britt who tries to dodge him when possible. They are very different as characters. Britt is looking for action and excitement and seems to live in the moment whereas Merlin is always plotting and scheming. It makes for a great dynamic between the two of them and a lot of the dialogue is hilarious as Merlin tries to boss her around and Britt totally disregards him.

Merlin like most of the men of the time has very little respect for women and thinks of them as silly, emotional and superficial. Britt is definitely a match for him though and proves him wrong so he is forced to develop respect for her (although not necessarily women in general).

She does a great job, slightly to her horror, of impersonating a 15 year old boy despite being “beardless”. Her whole attitude throughout is fantastic and funny and she may be one of my all time favourite characters.

The absolute highlight of the story for me was her meeting with the lady of the lake. This book is definitely worth reading for that alone.

They are really quick reads so I’ve already read the next four books in the series which are just as good. Britt continues to impersonate Arthur and gradually tries to recreate the legend of Camelot with the help of Merlin. Guinevere, Lancelot and a lot of the other well known characters gradually appear but aren’t necessarily as you would expect. Some supposed heroes have ulterior motives and Britt starts to run into the kind of relationship problems you would expect from being a 20 something year old woman impersonating a much younger male king.

The characters develop further in every story and despite being light reads there are some strong messages. I love KM Shea’s writing style and sense of humour and there is plenty of excitement and action. My only slight gripe is that there do tend to be spelling mistakes and missing words but these could be solved with a bit of proof reading.

The next book in the series is out next week and I’m really looking forward to it. I think romance will be in the air.