I love Arthurian lore, but this story wasn't one of my favorites. I think it could have been somehow more interesting...or maybe I missed something vital that is causing everyone to gush over this.

I had no problems with the narrator.

*3 stars* Had a good time reading it. Great writing and character development. But overall, forgettable.

I have to admit, this book was not for me. I hate to rate books badly, especially when I received them for free, but this one just did not do it for me. The audiobook format was fine. The narration style was fine, although I did have to listen to it on 2x speed to get invested. It was clear and crisp, and for the most part, the characters were easily distinguishable from one another. There were a few instances where that was not the case, but not too many.

Unfortunately, I just could not get into the book itself. It took me months to read it. And I normally devour a book this size in a day.... two at most.

It took me so long to finish this in fact that netgalley removed it from my shelf and I was forced to check it out of the library to finish it. It just drug on and on without giving me any reason to connect with the main character or any side characters. It also took a lot of liberties with the Arthurian legend source material. Don't get me wrong. I don't mind when retellings take liberties. But, this one was just Way beyond anything that even remotely resembled The source material anymore. The ending was also unsatisfactory.

The whole quest builds up for this one main purpose, and then it fizzles out in a totally unsatisfactory and groan-worthy way. And that's the most I can say about that without diving into spoilers. Put simply, this just was not the book for me.

Man, this was a really fantastic read! I love King Arthur retellings but a feminist one sounded really great! I had a great time reading the story of a girl who goes on this adventure, and it was just a really great read!

In the author notes, it talks about how this book is set in the Early Middle Ages, and in Wales, and draws from a variety of the retellings of King Arthur, and how Percival, or the older, old Welsh name, Peretur, which goes with the setting. And while it's information that I know little about, it was an interesting setting, with the historical details!

This is a gender-bent story, Peretur is a girl, and is attracted to other girls. But she's able to pass as a guy, which given she wants to be a warrior, a Companion for Artos's court, is a good thing. She was determined and fair and I loved reading her story!

But there's secrets-and truths-in her past, that make things complicated for her at the court. Artos is being driven mad by the sword-and wants an heir, and the cup that she grew up with, could help. I loved the mix of legends and myths and magic!

I had a really great time listening to this story, and I'm glad that I did so!

Spear by Nicola Griffith reads like a classic in the best way. It feels timeless. I'm sure the fact that it's an Arthurian Legend retelling influences that feeling, but it's really Griffith's clean yet magical writing that makes this novella truly feel like a modern classic.

Peretur rides out with mended armor and a broken hunting spear, knowing she is destined to join King Artos' court at Caer Leon. Dressed as a man, she meets and earns the respect of great knights, steals the hearts of multiple women, and learns more about herself and her strengths.

Spear is such a lovely addition to Arthurian Legend! It's gorgeously written and packs so much into one novella without feeling rushed or spare. I adored Peretur as a fierce female character who still feels humble and human in the best possible way. It was fun to see an Arthurian story that doesn't center Arthur, Lancelot, and Guinevere. It's clear from the author's notes that Nicola Griffith did her research and approached this novella with a lot of love, which can be felt the whole time you're reading. Griffith seamlessly makes the Arthurian Legend feel fresh, queer, and fascinating. I'd highly recommend this book, especially to readers like me who have always loved a lady knight!

*received for free from netgalley for honest review* 4.5, This was a really cool read! so happy it got to be it's own book and not just a short story!

I ended up DNFing this book at 30%. The prose is very flowery, and though it is beautiful, the writing style kept me at arms length from the characters and the action of the plot. I was having trouble getting to know the main character and I kept being lost on what was happening, because it just felt like pretty words and no substance. I can see why other people would like this book if they enjoy this type of prose, but it did not work for me.

Spear is really beautifully written and you notice it immediately, the language is so familiar, yet unique, and evokes legend, fantasy and history. As a reader who likes to sought out Arthurian books, this story reminds me of the classics. It has the magic and the majesty of that time. The audiobook narrator (who is also the author whoa!) gives great emotion and it was a joy to listen.
Full review to come on YouTube

I really liked the idea of this story and the storyline overall, I just wasn't quite able to connect with it the way I wanted to.

A girl grows up wild in the woods with visions of a faraway lake. As she grows up, she hears about Artos from a traveler, she knows her future lies in the king’s court. During her travels to Caer Leon, she falls in love, fights warriors, and discovers her fate.

Honestly, Griffith had me before I even knew what this was about. I’m always down to read any of her books, and then I heard the words, retelling and queer. Even better! This short, little book moved quickly and was full of adventure and familiar Arthurian lore with a bit of a feminist twist. If you’re into Arthurian legends but could do with more strong lady-centric stories, definitely check this one out.

Griffith said she started working on this for an anthology of retellings, but then when she was done, it was way too long for a short-story collection, and that’s how Spear was born. I’m so glad she was inspired to write something a bit longer, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Definitely excited to see what she does next.

Spear is a sapphic Arthurian retelling. I really loved the writing style, however, I did find the start of the book to be quite slow. It was hard for me to really get into the story. Though, the book itself is quite short that once I got the hang of where things were going, I was able to continue reading this smoothly.

Would definitely recommend to those who love the classics!

A spellbinding and subversive queer recasting of Arthurian myth, where on her adventures she will meet great knights and steal the hearts of beautiful women. She will fight warriors and sorcerers. And she will find her love, and the lake, and her fate.

I loved the idea of this novella. I think when I was younger I read every Arthurian tale I could find, Mary Stewart being my favorite. So the idea of a queer retelling just made my little gay heart sing.
Unfortunately, I feel a little robbed, even though this one is the closest to Stewart I have read in a while.

I did love the main character, Peredur, and the character-building was wonderful. I just felt it was a little unbalanced from the 1st half to the 2nd. So much time was spent on the main character, which I did not mind, but that left little time for the rest of the story.
I would love a longer version of this for sure.
As an Audiobook, the language was just beautiful and the author's reading of her story gave it an extra dimension. It was like having a loved one read you a story as a child.

Thanks to @netgalley, Macmillian Audio, and Nicola Griffith for the opportunity to listen to this audiobook in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion.

I don't even know how to put my feelings into words on this one because it just was not all that enjoyable for me. I didn't even realize that this story was an Arthurian retelling because the first 20% or so of the book just focuses on the main characters relationship with nature and the captivity that her mother holds over her. I can appreciate that this take on the classic is much more inclusive especially with the polyam relationship between Lancelot, Guinevere, and Arthur. Besides that though, there just wasn't much in this story for me. I found myself more lost than anything, and the lack of any sort of wrap up in the end just left a lot to be desired.

Fantastic story. I've read a lot of Arthur tales in my life and this is one of the best. Very unique, which is impressive when you're talking about a tale so overtold. The combining of myths and lore formed a complete and compelling story. The characters felt real and unique. Over all, I found this to be a very enjoyable read.

The audio narrator was good, but I had to listen at 1.5x speed because it was so slow.

Ah, this did not work for me… I was very excited about this book but I struggled and dnf’ed at around 30%.
I think the audio format kept me from being able to focus and enjoy the book. I might try again in the future.

Thank you so much to netgalley and the publisher for this audio ARC!

This novella was really well written. I enjoyed the fresh perspective. Unfortunately, it fell into the problem I have with many novellas, which is that they are not my preferred length. The second half of this novella was pretty rushed, and I think condensing the whole thing into a short story or expanding it into a novel would have worked a lot better.
Still, though, it was good. I was also under the impression it would be a retelling with Arthur as the MC but that was not the case.

The stories of King Arthur and the knights of his Round Table are myths that we seem to absorb by osmosis, as the stories are told and retold – and have been for centuries. King Arthur is one of those legends that seems to reinvent itself for each new generation, and Spear, with its heroine Peredur, is a fine addition to that long and proud tradition.

As this story opens, Peredur doesn’t even know her own name. She is growing up in complete isolation, with only her mother for company, in a remote valley in Wales. Her mother has two names for the girl, one meaning gift which she uses on good days, while on bad days, she calls her “payment”. Whichever the girl might be, her mother tells her stories of the Tuath Dé, their great treasures and their terrible use of the humans they see as beneath them. Humans like her powerful but broken mother, who has isolated herself and her child out of fear that the Tuath, or at least one of them, will hunt her down in order to take back what she stole from him.

Peredur, like all children, grows up. She finds the valley small and her mother’s paranoia, however righteous, constricting. And she wants to fight. So she leaves the valley and her mother behind and goes out in search of the King and his companions – who she saved once when they wandered into her mother’s secluded valley and found themselves facing more bandits than they planned.

Peredur is searching for a place to belong and a cause to serve. But she has had dreams all of her life of a magical mystical lake and a woman who lives by its side. This is the story of her quest to learn who she really is, what is the true nature of her power, and to find a place where she can belong and can bring her skills to fight on the side of right. To make something, not just of herself but of the place to which she joins herself.

In the court of Arturus at Caer Lyon, Peredur finds a place she wants to call her own. And a king who is reluctant to let her claim it.

Escape Rating A: This is lovely. The language is beautiful, and the reading of it by the author gave it just the right air of mystery and myth. It felt like a tale of another world, as all the best variations on the Arthurian legends do in one way or another.

From one perspective, Spear stands on the shoulders of many giants, previous retellings of the “Matter of Britain”, from Monmouth to Mallory to T.H. White to Mary Stewart. In particular, it reminded me very much of Mary Stewart’s Merlin Trilogy (beginning with The Crystal Cave), not for its focus on Merlin but for its attempt to set the story in a more likely historical period, in both cases sometime in the 5th Century AD, after the Romans abandoned Britain and left a vacuum of power which Arthur did his best to fill.

By setting the story in 5th Century Wales, the author is also able to loop in the stories of the Tuath Dé, or Tuatha Dé Danann, and weave one set of legends with the other, to give Peredur both her origin and the source of her power. That she was then able to link the whole thing back to Arthur through his mad quest for the Holy Grail made for a delightful twist in the story – albeit one with an ultimately sad ending. (If the Tuath Dé sound familiar, it may be from The Iron Druid Chronicles where they play an important part even to the present.)

But Spear is an interpretation for the 21st century, in that Peredur, better known as Percival in many versions of the Arthurian Tales, is a woman who has wants to fight like a man and has chosen to present herself as a man because she lives in an era when women do not become knights, much like Alanna in Tamora Pierce’s Song of the Lioness Quartet.

This is also a queer interpretation of the Arthur tales, not just because Peredur is lesbian, but because she moves through a world where same-sex relationships and poly-relationships are simply part of the way things are. That includes Peredur’s love of the sorceress Nimüe, but also changes the eternal triangle of Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot into a quietly acknowledged triad as a normal part of the way things are. Just as quietly acknowledged that the Lance of this Arthurian legend was born with one leg malformed. He’s still a capable fighter, and a veritable centaur on horseback. The world and its heroes are not now, nor have they ever been, made up entirely of straight, 100% able-bodied, white men, and this story acknowledges that heroes are everywhere, everywhen and everyone. As they, and we, have always been.

Spear turned out to be a lovely, lyrical, magical extension of the Arthurian legends that borrows rightfully and righteously, as all Arthurian tales do, from what has come before, from what fantasy writers have added to the period and the interpretation, from the time in which it is set, the time in which it is written, and the author’s magical stirring of that pot into a heady brew.

One of these days I need to pick up the author’s Hild, because it sounds like it will be just as fantastic (in both senses of that word) as Spear turned out to be.

“In the wild waste, a girl, growing.”

So begins SPEAR, an utterly captivating novella that delivers a queer, gender-bent story drawn from Arthurian legend. Griffith’s protagonist is Peretur, a version of Percival, raised in a cave in Wales by a single mother driven to keep her child secret to protect her - but from what, she will not say. As Peretur comes of age and grows in her exceptional abilities (strength, agility, heightened senses, attunement to animals, and more) she seeks first her name and then her destiny, embarking on a journey to find where she might belong.

What a fantastic little book this is. The writing is stunning, full of action and vivid imagery and the misty, verdant mood of Britain, with poetic gems sprinkled throughout. It’s jam-packed with nods to various bits from the mythology surrounding Arthur, while also being a wholly original story centering those traditionally without power. We’re treated to a couple of sapphic romances and a throuple that would make Xiran Jay Zhao proud. The ending gently surprised me and was incredibly satisfying. The author’s note describing the varied source material she’s pulling from and the choices she makes with it was fascinating and made me appreciate the twists she puts on this well-trodden legend even more.

I want to end with something Griffith writes in the author’s note: “Crips, queers, women and other genders, and people of colour are an integral part of the history of Britain—we are embedded at every level of society, present during every change, and part of every problem and its solution. We are here now; we were there then. So we are in this story.”

Definitely recommend this subversive historical fantasy novella. Thanks to Tordotcom and Macmillan Audio for the review copies! The audio version is narrated delightfully by the author herself, with what I imagine to be highly authentic Old Welsh pronunciations.

Content warnings: violence, murder, death of a loved one

I received this audio book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Spear is a queer Arthurian retelling and I really enjoyed it. This was the first book I have ever read/listened to by Nicola Griffith and I feel this was a really good introduction to her work. The listening time for the audio book is about 5 hours and 43 minutes making it a fairly short audio book. The narrator was easy to listen to, had a nice voice, and did a great job.

For me, a retelling of the Arthurian legend is usually not as good as the original, but Spear is just as good as the original. It's a world full of destiny, magic, fights, love, and mystery. It is a Camelot for the modern era that will enchant and immerse the reader/listener into this magically world.

thanks to macmillan audio and tor for providing this audio arc through netgalley!

a beautifully queer retelling of the legend of arthur. this was my first time reading (or listening) to anything by Nicola Griffith. i loved that she was the narrator for this audiobook! it feels like everything comes across exactly as it’s supposed to be interpreted when the author narrates.

this was truly a beautiful story. we first meet our MC growing up with only her mother, living remotely with no clear influence of the outside world.

we are taken through moments of growth, self expression, realization, and expression and get to see Peretur explore and learn about herself and the world she had never been apart of before.

the writing of this story is beautiful and so descriptive- it’s all too easy to think you’re actually there. definitely worth the quick read!