I found Lady Knight by accident, searching through a catalogue of books for another title which I enjoyed only a fraction as much as I enjoyed this lovely tale from Ms. Baker which follows the star-crossed love a female knight has for a noblewoman trapped in a loveless, arranged marriage. Though Ms. Baker's prose flows well, it's clear that she wasn't quite sure what to do with a few of her supporting characters. The knight's cousin, a powerful priestess, would seem, by the attention lavished upon her by the author, to play a larger role in the tale than she ultimately does, something of a manipulative but secondary villain. But these weaknesses of structure do not ruin a good read.
Fantasy fiction all-too-rarely entertains alternative voices with alternative relationships. One would expect science fiction and fantasy to be the most inclusive of the atypical, gender and sexuality. Sadly, this does not seem to be the case. But this is to Ms. Baker's benefit for it's clear that much of Lady Knight's punch comes from the unusual gender roles and relationships presented. Make the eponymous knight a male and this is not much more than B-grade fantasy whose story's been told a thousand times before. (3/5 Stars)
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