Blogtour “The Witch, the Sword, and the Cursed Knights”

Hello, my friends!

I am happy to say that I am part of another TBR and Beyond Tours blogtour! This time I’m gonna tell you about a wonderful book by Alexandria Rogers which more or less blew me away. Thank you for letting me be part of this.
You should also definitely check out the other tour stops.

Synopsis:

Twelve-year-old Ellie can’t help that she’s a witch, the most hated member of society. Determined to prove her worth and eschew her heritage, Ellie applies to the Fairy Godmother Academy—her golden ticket to societal acceptance. But Ellie’s dreams are squashed when she receives the dreaded draft letter to serve as a knight of King Arthur’s legendary Round Table. She can get out of the draft—but only if she saves a lost cause.

Enter Caedmon, a boy from Wisconsin struggling with the death of his best friend. He first dismisses the draft as ridiculous; magic can’t possibly exist. But when Merlin’s ancient magic foretells his family’s death if he doesn’t follow through, he travels to the knights’ castle, where he learns of a wicked curse leeching the knights of their power.

To break the curse, Ellie and Caedmon must pass a series of deathly trials and reforge the lost, shattered sword of Excalibur. And unless Ellie accepts her witch magic and Caedmon rises to become the knight he’s meant to be, they will both fail—and the world will fall to the same darkness that brought King Arthur and Camelot to ruin.

I took my sweet time to start this book which I deeply regret now. Not only does that mean that I have to rush writing this review, it also means that I could have read this wonderful book sooner!
I took a lot of notes, reading this book.

The book throws you pretty much in there. One of the two main characters – Ellie – lives in one of the 25 and a half realms, one of those with magic. Ellie is a sweet and determined girl, starved for approval and friendship, who wishes for nothing more than to become a fairy godmother and to forever hide that she is a witch. She has high hopes… until a draft letter arrives.

Her counterpart, a boy named Caedmon who is from „our“ realm, gets drafted too but under total different circumstances. He has no idea about the realms that coexist with our world and doesn‘t really care. His best friend Jimmy has just died and Caedmon has a hard time struggling with depression.

The chapters alternate between the two characters and I loved both equally. I found it curious how different Ellie seemed from Caedmon‘s point of view and vice versa. Ellie seemed much more bubbly and energetic. Caedmon was maybe a bit spacey but nice and kind. I found that especially interesting since it shows how other people can never tell what‘s going on inside a person. The inside can be much different than the outside.

I loved the worldbuilding. The 25 and a half realms that we didn‘t all get to experience but certainly would have wanted to, the castle where Caedmon and Ellie are training to be knights. The creatures that are either super cool or will give the reader nightmares for days. It was imaginative and interesting and makes you hope for more.
The story is fastpaced and gripping, with trials – literally and figuratively – around every corner. The stakes are so impossibly high and you cannot help to root for Ellie and Caedmon to achieve their individual goals.
There were interesting and terrifying and surprising and heartbreaking moments and I loved almost every second of it.

Of course nothing is perfect and even in this thrilling adventure there were some things that I think could have been done better. The action scenes were always fast but also felt kinda blurry to me. Sometimes I had trouble to grasp what just happened and had to read one or two paragraphs again to be sure. Some of the worldbuilding was a bit confusing, especially at the beginning.
Still, I really enjoyed The Witch, the Sword and the Cursed Knights and I am interested in reading more by Alexandria Rogers.

My Rating:

Have you read the book yet or did I convince you to try? What would you do if you were drafted for to be a Knight of the Round Table?