Gerald Morris

In medieval England, fourteen-year-old Terence finds his tranquil existence suddenly changed when he becomes the squire of the young Gawain of Orkney and accompanies him on a long quest, proving Gawain's worth as a knight and revealing an important secret about his own true identity.

The squire's tale

Kirsten Simkiss

This book follows the story of the squire Terence and his knight, Sir Gawain of King Arthur's court. While not a bad read, this book is very disjointed almost. For the most part, it seemed like certain things seemed unnecessary to the overall plotline. It really is more a story of a child trying to figure out his birth right and who his parents are and a man learning that women are people too and are not all perfect. Not that he was ever really awful to them to begin with, granted, but it mostly focuses on Gawain trying to figure out women as the book goes on and, eventually, he comes to the SHOCKING conclusion that every woman is a different person and has their own dreams and desires.

Take, for instance, the quest line of the white hart and the white hound. They are sent after it to fulfill the quest that is promised for them and, once they catch them, they just simply send them back to the king and wait for adventure to find them. It's really very oddly anticlimactic. I mean, you'd think maybe the hart and the hound would split up and they'd have to go to France and back just to catch it or something. Or they find it's a magical deer and they need special trappings for it or something. Either way, they catch up and that's pretty much the last they hear of the quest. It's more like the book is broken up into little episodes with a vague overarching plot that eventually catches up to them by chance. Literally, they mostly just wait around or aimlessly wander around waiting for something interesting to happen to them. I find that really strange, honestly.

That being said, the characters are not badly written and the story flows fairly well. I was able to read the whole book in an evening with no trouble and no real want to put it down. Gawain is delightfully sassy in a sort of quiet way and Terence is a wonderfully loyal sidekick to Gawain. Other characters might have needed a little extra fleshing out, but even so they weren't terrible.

The squire's tale

Reviews