Early Review: Lady’s Knight (Lady’s Knight #1)
Lady’s Knight (Lady’s Knight #1) by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner
Published By: Electric Monkey
Publication Date: June 5, 2025
Date Read: April 27. 2025
Genre: YA – Historical Fantasy
Source: eARC from Electric Monkey and Netgalley
Format: E-Book
Pages: 528
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A rollercoaster of a medieval romp and a sapphic love story, set in a world of dragons, witches and excellent snacks from NYT bestselling duo, Amie Kaufman and Megan Spooner. Perfect for fans of Gwen and Art are Not in Love, Twin Crowns and My Lady Jane.
A blacksmith’s daughter with a secret.
A lady with a plan.
We’re in for one unforgettable knight…
Gwen has spent the past several years manning the blacksmith’s in place of her father, an open secret in the village in which she lives. A much more covert secret, however, is that she knows not only how to craft but also how to wield a sword, and an incognito stunt at the local jousting tournament manages to catch the eye of the wily Lady Isobelle.
Isobelle has secret dreams too, but she’s been promised in marriage to the winner of the whole stupid tournament, which means an end to any freedom or choices for her. Desperate to avoid this fate, when she connects the newcomer knight to the female smithy she saw earlier that day, she begins to hatch a scheme…
Petty knights. Backstabbing noblemen. A prison breakout. Cheesecake-on-a-stick. One particularly large and angry dragon.
Will our ladies survive the night? And can our knight save the day?
“Even if by no one else but us, you will be seen. You will remember who you are.”
Lady’s Knight was a book that I was immediately interested in the moment I heard about it. I’ve always been a huge fan of books with knights and tournaments and so this definitely sounded like something I would love. Imagine my excitement when I heard that this was actually inspired by A Knight’s Tale. A Knight’s Tale is one of my favourite movies of all time and so I was so excited to dive in. Add into the mix that there are dragons and I was definitely sold. I really enjoyed Lady’s Knight. It was such a fun read and one I would definitely recommend.
One thing I really enjoyed about Lady’s Knight was the writing. I thought it was done in such a fun way. There are chapters where there’s a pause in the story where a narrator or voiceover kind of character says things about what is happening and I thought it really fit the storyline. Especially if you’ve seen A Knight’s Tale, because there’s a character in that movie that does introductions for the jousts as a ‘narrator’ and so it reminded me of that. I really loved all the A Knight’s Tale vibes sprinkled throughout the book. I dub this book as A Knight’s Tale if the female blacksmith was the Knight. Another thing I really enjoyed about the writing was just how easy it was to get lost in it. There were times where I really couldn’t put it down.
I really enjoyed the characters. Gwen and Isobel were fantastic main characters, and I loved how they were totally different personalities. You had Gwen who was very shy and introverted and wanted nothing more than to fade into the background of social situations and then you have Isobel who loves being centre of attention. I loved the whole opposites attract aspect of the book for them. And I also thought it was great to see them falling for each other, and not only dealing with being women in a medieval time, but also having a female/female relationship at that time. While Gwen and Isobel were fantastic characters, I also absolutely loved the side characters. I am desperate to find out more about Isobel maid Olivia. We know she is not who she says she is and I think she has such a colourful past, I really want to know more about her. I’d love to see a whole book about her as I feel it would be fascinating.
Now for the things I wasn’t crazy about… for me there wasn’t enough plot. I was so excited for a book full of knights and a jousting tournament, and I was so looking forward to seeing the tournament but there wasn’t enough of it for me. The first half of the book is Gwen and Isobel prepping for Gwen to go into the tournament and then I felt like the tournament was over super fast. It really disappointed me, as I really wanted to see more of the training for the tournament and the actual tournament but there was very little of it throughout the book. I still really enjoyed the book but I found myself skim reading some bits as I was losing interest a little.
Overall, Lady’s Knight was a really fun and adorable read, filled with drama and some gorgeous LGBTQ+ rep. I would definitely recommend it, but would say don’t go in expecting loads of action in terms of the tournament. I will definitely be picking up the next book in the series.
