I loved reading more about the Arthurian age with a new fantasy twist and time travel. Total immersion in the time period with details of every day life in the Medieval Age.

I was really intrigued by this book because it seemed like an Outlander novel with King Arthur. I wanted to see how a modernized Gwen would adapt to the Middle Ages. However, I could not get into the story because the characters are very flat. Still, the story is very well-written and filled with lush descriptions. I recommend this novel for fans of The Lady of Hay!

This books did not give what I wanted it to give the story was ok but I did not like the writing or world building.

Fil Reid delivers a perfect blend of historical fiction, time travel, Arthurian legend and romance in The Dragon Ring Guinevere Book 1.
I was quickly pulled into this novel after reading the first page. Twenty four year old Gwen is fulfilling her fathers wish to scatter his ashes on Glastonbury Tor in Somerset, England a spot she often visited with her father and twin brother. There, she hears a high pitched sound and amidst the ruins of an old church tower a glimmering object catches her eye. It is a ring embellished with a golden dragon. Curiosity peaked, she reaches for the ring and is magically transported back in time. Gwen has entered into the Dark Ages and soon finds that she is there for a reason; a prophecy that only she can fulfill. She will be King Arthur’s Guinevere
This is a well constructed, intriguing story and Fil Reid weaves a present day Gwen and a 5th/6th century woman beautifully. I loved the characters and the dialogue that breathed life into the details of Gwen and Arthur’s lives.
This is a highly recommended read and I look forward to the next book in the Guinever series.
My thanks to all at NetGalley, Fil Reid for giving Guinevere a new voice and Dragonblade Publishing for an ARC in exchange for an honest book review.

Time Travel Historical Fantasy

Gwen went to bury her father, only to find herself transported back in time, one thousand years into the past, to King Arthur’s time. It all started with a mysterious dragon bracelet when Gwen was a child. It was given to her by a mysterious stranger. After burying her father, Gwen stepped into the ruined church tower and saw a golden ring, engraved with a dragon symbol. Little did she know that putting on the ring would hurl her far into the past to become Guinevere, Arthur’s queen of legend.

This story tells of how Gwen travels in time and meets Arthur, and it talks about the Arthurian legend. The story had some romance and a bit of steam towards the end, but it was more of a historical fantasy. It dragged on for me, but I seem to be in the minority in my thinking since everyone else gave the story five stars. I would like to know what happens next, so I would like to continue reading the series. The story does end on a cliffhanger.

Guinevere: The Dragon Ring by Fil Reid, a new author from Dragonblade, with a different kind of book, is about time travel and King Arthur. While I am a huge fan of King Arthur, I generally shy away from modern people who travel back in time and have a romance, necessitating a decision whether to stay or return. This is an exception and I can't wait to see where Reid goes with it. Gwen was there to scatter her father's ashes. He was a King Arthur scholar and she had grown up immersed in the legend. She and her twin, Artie (Arthur) had made the trip to Glastonbury often. She had left her boyfriend, Nathan, sleeping in their hotel room. She had wanted to be alone with the father one last time. Years ago she had been given a lovely gold bracelet by a Fancy-Dress-Man. Her father had had it examined by experts and there was no explanation so he gave it back to her. Today, in the tower, she spied a ring. As she slipped it on her finger, something happened. All of a sudden her surroundings changed.

The exciting thing about a legend is there's lot of room to play and play Reid does.
Arthur is everything we would want him to be: good-looking, a sense of humor, a sense of responsibility, surrounded by loyal friends. Merlin is the surprise. He is the Fancy-Dress-Man who had been watching Gwen. He is young and handsome, but of course he is magic. Gwen is at a disadvantage in many ways as she has heard the stories. But, were they just stories? How much more is happening here? How can she get back to where she belongs? Is she changing the future just by being here and interjecting things she knows? This is an exciting and interesting take on an age-old story. Reid has written a fabulous book. Can't wait for more.

I was invited to read a free e-ARC of Guinevere: The Dragon Ring by Dragonblade through Netgalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own. #netgalley #dragonblade #guineverethedragonring #filreid

A time travel story that takes the heroine, Gwen back to the time of King Arthur.
Well, yes, who has not grown up on the story of King Arthur and the Knights of the roundtable!
One of my favorite movies of all time was "Excalibur" and the history just fascinates me.

An excellent story of a modern day girl, meant to become Guinevere, wife to King Arthur,
traveling back in time to fulfill that role. With excellent descriptions of the time period and
how hard life was then, you will be transported back.

I really cannot wait to read more of this series and see what happens!

The Dragon Ring
Fil Reid
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Gwen, a twenty four year old librarian, living with her boyfriend, Nathan, has all the amenities that modern day convenience can give her. So when her father dies, with her twin on the other side of the world, it's left to Gwen to fulfill her father's wishes and scatter his ashes on the top of Glastonbury Tor in Somerset, England. As she stands there many different memories come crashing down upon her. One of them being the time she climbed up these hills with her family and a man stepped out and handed her a gold Bracelet. The bracelet she now wore. Leaving behind the memories she steps into the ruined church tower, and a gold ring catches her eye. It's an engraved ring with a dragon emblem. When Gwen picks the ring up, she's transported into the world of the Dark ages, where she finds out she's expected to fulfill a prophesy. She is supposed to marry Prince Arthur and help him become the king we all know from legends.
However it's not that easy to go from the modern day world you know back in time to the Dark ages, is it? So she doesn't really want to stay.

Arthur, Prince of Dumnonia, and son of the ailing King Uthyr Pendragon, has ruled the hilltop fortress of Din Cadan for his father since he was a mere boy of sixteen. But he has an older brother who seems intent on inheriting both the kingdom and the High Kingship. Arthur is not convinced that any prophesy can decide his future, and he certainly has no need of a wife. Then the news comes that his father is at last dying in far off Viroconium. Taking Gwen with him, farther and farther from the Tor where she had hoped to return to her own world, he sets off to outwit his brother.

Fil Reid is fantastic. I really enjoyed going back in time to the Dark Ages and King Arthur. There are so many wonderful rich facts from history and the main characters were wonderful. Prince Arthur was attentive, honorable, and had all of those other chivalrous attributes that we think he had, and Gwen was the beautiful Lady we think she was, with a very kind heart to boot. You couldn't not like these two characters. The story flowed along very nicely and it had all of my favorite things that I think a time travel story should have. All in all I believe that this is the start of a great new series, and I'm really impressed with Ms. Reid's novel.

Thank you to Netgalley and Dragonblade Publishing for providing me with an e-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest feedback.

I haven't read a time-travel romance in a while, so I was excited when I happened across THE DRAGON RING, a time-travel romance involving Arthurian legend. Action, adventure, and romance all set in 5th century Britain involving King Arthur and his court? Sign me up!

The story begins with Gwen, a twenty-four-year-old librarian who is in current day and grieving the passing of her father. Since he was an Arthurian legend scholar and obsessive, he's requested that his ashes be spread at Glastonbury Tor, located in Somerset, England. After scattering the ashes, she hears a high-pitched note, touches a golden ring that she spots on the ground, and is transported to 5th century Britain, straight into the heart of Arthurian legend. As her adventure unfolds, she must decide whether or not to embrace her new life, or to try to return to the one she's always known.

What worked for me in this book was the accurate and detailed descriptions of what life would have been like in the Dark Ages. Things were bleak. In particular, the description of poverty in the village that would later be modern day Bath comes to mind. Those poor, bedraggled, starving children! Another example is how important one's horse was in that time. The care and feeding of a horse is something I know little about and it was interesting to learn more about it.

Having never studied Arthurian legend or the detailed history of 5th century Britain, many of the details in this book were new to me. If you're a history buff, or want to learn more about this time, THE DRAGON RING surely delivers.

That said, for me, there was an overload of historic information that pulled me out of the book several times. It messed with the pacing. For example, there's a conversation Arthur and Gwen have early on in the book that not only feels info-dumpy to me, much of the information doesn't seem relevant to the overall plot of the book.

While I liked the idea of a modern day woman standing in for the legendary Guinevere, the romance aspect of this novel didn't hit the beats I expect in romance. Other than learning how to manage life in 5th century Britain, Gwen didn't change much as a person. There really wasn't any conflict keeping her and Arthur apart. Gwen didn't really have much agency, but I suppose that's true of all women during that time in history.

All in all, I think this book has a lot of components that come together to form a cohesive story. Pick this book up if you are interested in learning about what life was like during the Dark Ages, and specifically about Arthur and the politics and geography of the time as seen through the eyes of a modern day woman.

I wasn't looking for THE DRAGON RING, but the title and cover jumped out at me as I was browsing the NetGallery catalogue. Then I learned it involved time-travel back to the Camelot legends, and I was all in.

I didn't expect to pick up the book and race to the end, but that is exactly what I did. While some tense moments were resolved pretty quickly, there's surely plenty more suffering to come and the book left a great deal to be explored, making for the promise of a great series. If you are into anything right now that appears to be from the dark ages (The Last Kingdom, Witcher, even GOT--though I'm not comparing this book to that, but just with that old, lost feel), I think you'll enjoy it, too.

Here's the premise: A modern day Guinevere has the sad task of spreading her historian father's ashes on his favorite Old Ye Englishe hill. Being his beloved daughter, of course she knows the historical significance of the hill, and has been there many times. Turns out, once when she was there as a younger girl, she "met" a funny dressed man and "found" a bracelet, that seemed to be an authentic treasure from years past. Now, as she's remembering this, she sees another shiny gold thing . . . Well, I can't tell you the rest without spoiling it, so you'll just have to read to find out. But you can see how this is intriguing. We somewhat know what is going to happen (but which of the many myths will the author chase?), but we want to see it unfold. Reid does a good job of world building and showing us that olde worlde. Such a good job that I read the book in just a couple of nights. Reid also doesn't meander, so that is good, but as I hinted, some of the resolutions felt too rushed for me to become too emotionally involved. At the same time, it was super fun and I'm looking forward to the rest of the series.

Well done. Thank you for this arc in exchange for an honest review. NOTE, I tried to auto post this to Goodreads and it didn't find the book. Just an FYI to the publisher, I will copy and paste the review as I found it on there.

I'm terribly sorry but I couldn't finish this book. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with it. I just couldn't get interested. I read about half and it felt like a history lesson I wasn't enjoying.
The blurb about a woman being taken to King Arthur's time is good. Lots of people will probably enjoy it.
I will not post this review anywhere else because I don't want to influence others by my choice.

This was sich a fun read, and I ended up liking it a lot more han i thought I would (not that I thought I would dislike it going in to it). This book made me realisme that I really like boks with time travel in them, and that aspect was definitely my favorite. My biggest complaint abort the book, was that Arthur as a character sometimes felt a bit flat to me.