The Witch Below the Dreaming Wood by H.G. Parry

I have always really enjoyed stories about King Arthur even though I don’t think I’ve read much of the “source material” yet, but I did recently buy a copy of The Once and Future King by T.H. White and that book has moved up on my list of books to read.

The Witch Below the Dreaming Wood is told in two dual timelines, the chapters alternating between Elaine Ambrose in 1941 England and Nimue at Camelot just before it falls. Elaine is a librarian living in London who is called to a country estate to catalogue a collection on behalf of a professor. When she arrives to Camlan, she finds no professor but his housekeeper Mrs. Leaf and a groom named Tom. Admist this are the horrors of World War II, and yet people all over the world are dreaming of King Arthur, and Elaine finds herself misbelieving the truth of those dreams until she begins to dream of Nimue.

Nimue was born and raised under the lake by Morgan Le Fay and her purpose in life has been to bring about the fall of Merlin. She has been trained in the ways of magic so that she can finally entrap Merlin and punish him for what he did to Mordred. But as Nimue leaves beneath the lake for the first time and meets Merlin, she is taken aback by the fact that he is a man too. And what once was a path that she felt so sure about is now muddled with confusion and emotions she never expected to feel.

This story slowly collides and brings the two timelines together in a very unique and clever way. I fell in love with all of these characters so much, Elaine and Tom trying to figure out how to save their world in the midst of a great war, Merlin and Nimue trying to save Camelot even though it was destined to fall. This is a really lovely book, H.G Parry is a remarkable author. Thank you very much to Orbit for sending this one my way!