My letter “K” pick for this year’s A to Z Challenge was THE KNIGHT AND THE MOTH by Rachel Gillig. This high-stakes gothic romantasy was everything I need in a read and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

At the start of the story, we are introduced to Six, a diviner of Ashling Cathedral, and her sister diviners, known individually as One through Five. They were brought to the cathedral as orphans and each day, multiple times a day, they drown in the waters of a magical spring, see visions and portents, then are revived by the abbess, who then shares those findings with paying customers. Each diviner serves for ten years, and for Six and her sisters, their time is nearly up.

A new king has just been crowned and makes a visit (along with a surly, but distractingly handsome knight), and Six reads a powerful, but unfortunately bad number of portents for the sovereign. When she catches the king and his knights stealing the magical spring water, she uses that knowledge to blackmail the group into helping her because her five diviner sisters have gone missing under mysterious circumstances. The king agrees to help, and Six, along with an adorably childlike yet strangely wise talking gargoyle set out to scour the kingdom to not only find the diviners, but uncover some hard truths about the religious foundations of their country.

That’s about all I can tell you without spoilers, but Six – whom we later learn was originally named Sybil – is a smart, determined young woman and Rory, the knight with the foul temper, is a complex and compelling love interest. There’s a serious slow burn romance here, but the payoff is more than worth it. This book reminds me of GALLANT by V.E. Schwab in the dark and haunted feel of it. There are many unseen twists and reveals, and it ends on a serious cliffhanger. Now I have to wait until September for book two and I find that beyond irritating. Four and a half stars, only because the pacing was a little slow in a few places.