Book Review: The Knight and the Moth by Rachel Gillig

*I received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.*
Title: The Knight and The Moth
Author: Rachel Gillig
Publisher: Orbit
Publication Date: May 20, 2025
ISBN: 9780356522968

Synopsis:
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.

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Gillig is the master of the gothic fantasy. The same author that brought us the One Dark Window series, now brings a new gothic fantasy novel that is a breathtaking and harrowing journey of self-discovery and magic that is both cruel and lovely. The story follows Six, a Diviner who is revered for her ability to read the signs of the gods. Near the end of her ten-year term of service, she meets a group of knights and the new boy-king, finding her place among them as she discovers who she is outside of the Cathedral where she’s grown into adulthood.

This books strength, similar to Gillig’s previous series, is in its immaculate world-building and its construction of its magic system. Unlike ODW, the magic in this world is almost entirely a construct, divine and widespread, yet controlled by the hands of those who wield the power. The lesson Six, or Sybil as we come to know her, learns throughout the novel is that the magic that she believed in so greatly is a fabrication, speaking to the power of belief. This society, like so many others, buys into the their devotion to faith and the symbols, or portents, of good and evil, yet what they are truly buying into is a system created by those who wish to wield power over others.

This book is haunting and beautiful. It’s filled with unlikely romance, unusual and mythical characters, gargoyles, and sinister histories. Every page is engaging and it’s impossible to tell where the story ends. In a market that’s saturated with so many similar romantasy novels, The Knight and the Moth is a real standout. Gillig started off strong with her debut series and she’s only going upward from there with this fantastic introduction to a new series. I hope other readers will love it as much as I have.

Happy reading!