I borrowed a copy of Rachel Gillig‘s The Knight and the Moth through Libby for a road trip.
Sybil Delling has spent nine years dreaming of having no dreams at all. Like the other foundling girls who traded a decade of service for a home in the great cathedral, Sybil is a Diviner. In her dreams she receives visions from six unearthly figures known as Omens. From them, she can predict terrible things before they occur, and lords and common folk alike travel across the kingdom of Traum’s windswept moors to learn their futures by her dreams.
Just as she and her sister Diviners near the end of their service, a mysterious knight arrives at the cathedral. Rude, heretical, and devilishly handsome, the knight Rodrick has no respect for Sybil’s visions. But when Sybil’s fellow Diviners begin to vanish one by one, she has no choice but to seek his help in finding them. For the world outside the cathedral’s cloister is wrought with peril. Only the gods have the answers she is seeking, and as much as she’d rather avoid Rodrick’s dark eyes and sharp tongue, only a heretic can defeat a god.
I really enjoyed this. The heroine was kind, strong, and determined to save herself and everyone else. There were some serious elder daughter vibes going on there. But I did find that she triumphed in ways and moments that she really shouldn’t have. The MMC was wonderful, loyal, and interesting. A little less so after he and the FMC pair up, though. He morphed into a generic perfect boyfriend. Maude and the bat-winged gargoyle were marvelous side characters, the gargoyle especially. He added the humor and comic relief that the story needed. And the world was intriguing, with a subtle kind of magic.
There is a lot to appreciate, but I did find almost everything, even the twist at the end, pretty predictable, and it ends on a cliffhanger. But the narrator,
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