Hunky/scary man aside (I’m leaning toward scary, personally… he weirds me out), this is not a romance. It has romance in it — in fact love is central to the plot — but it’s not a foray into the bodice-ripping genre. Which is not necessarily a bad thing; it just wasn’t what I was expecting from the cover.

This book picks up the Arthurian legend after Arthur has died (there’s flashbacks to the last years of Arthur’s reign, so I’m counting it for the Arthur challenge), with Galahad, son of Lancelot, and his search for the Grail. It’s a long and torturous journey, partially because Galahad is a bit of a single-minded twit, but it’s fairly interesting. He wanders all over Britain, taking his friend Percival back to Wales, challenging the kings of the north, serving for right and justice, fighting for Constantine, falling in love with Percival’s sister Dandrane, and essentially being a Hero. The quest is interspersed with sections flashing back to Galahad’s childhood, his relationship (or lack thereof) with his mother, Elaine –I’m not sure if this is true to the legends or not — and Lancelot, and how he became to be that single-minded twit.

It was an interesting story, but one that didn’t quite do it for me. Perhaps it was because Galahad is so unlikeable for most of the book — he’s unmerciful (cruelly castrating a man for raping a king’s daughter), he’s judgemental (especially of Lancelot and Gueneviere), he’s dismissive and suspicious of women (oh, boy is he!), he’s obsessive… in short, he’s frustrating. Incredibly so. Which makes the book, itself, hard to like. It has to be that way, though, for Galahad Learns many Important Lessons about Life and Love (and mercy, and judging, and relationships, and responsibility) before he can find the grail. Which is another thing I didn’t like: it got almost heavy-handed, preaching about all the things that Galahad was deficient in (sinning by being sinned against, to put a religious spin on it?) and how he had to reform himself (which he began to do because he fell in love) before he could be the Worthy Knight everyone thought he was.

I also found it interesting that McKenzie rewrote a bit of the legends, giving Elaine a much more defined (and sinister) role, and chasitifying the relationship between Lancelot and Gueneviere. They loved each other, but they were noble about that love, never giving in to it. Which was okay, but not the legends I was used to.

All those elements should have added up to a good book… but they just didn’t. It wasn’t that it was bad… but maybe what I really did want was more bodice-ripping?