Sistersong exceeded my expectations, and is everything I could want in a book.

Sistersong follows the story of three siblings: Keyne, Riva, and Sinne. They are the children of King Cador, one of the last pagan kings of Briton. However, the Queen's endorsement of a certain Christian priest threatens the King's ties to his magic.

King Cador's children feel this shift distinctly. Their traditions are threatened, their powers are dwindling, and it's hard to say that their kingdom is better off by forsaking their gods. The priest's grip on Dumnonia sets each sibling on a different path to grapple with, and understand, their own magic.

Sistersong is told from the three perspectives of the siblings, and I think this is expertly done by Holland. For starters, each of the siblings has a distinct voice and narrative. In most multiple-POV novels I've read, this is one of the most difficult feats to pull off. And yet, Holland conveys Riva's bitterness, Sinne's electricity, and Keyne's journey of becoming in a masterful way.

Not only this, but the varying POVs help to put the reader just a few steps ahead of the characters. Some may call this "predictability," but I love the tension that this creates between the siblings. It's a narrative tool that's difficult to pull off, but I think Holland does it well. It makes the journey to the revelation that much more bittersweet, in the end, because each sibling unknowingly carries but a piece of the puzzle. That, and a chasm grows between them.

I also loved how Holland wrote in Keyne, who is a trans man. (Note that for much of the narrative, Keyne is not out to anyone, and therefore is misgendered frequently. There is also a lot of dysphoria. However, the journey is so beautiful and worth it.) Holland has found a way to include a trans character in a historical fantasy that is hopeful and triumphant. Keyne is hands-down my favorite character, and his journey of discovery is so well done. It's nice to see a book that ultimately sidesteps (most of) the trauma of being trans and does something so meaningful with a trans character.

Another major selling point of the novel is the allusions to Arthurian legend. I feel like much of it is up to interpretation, but I choose to believe that this is directly connected to the mythos rather than being nodded at. At the end of this review, I'll go into why I think this.

Ultimately, this book hit everything right for me. I loved the complicated legacy of the three siblings, and their respective journeys. This is a book about being forced to grow up in a matter of months, and the different outcomes that may result. (I've seen the criticism that the book is fairly light in the first half, and dark in the second half, but I think that's a simplification. For Keyne, for example, the narrative only gets better. I also think that the abruptness of war makes the book so much richer.) This book is about jealousy, fear, kinship, war, discovery.

Representation: Trans character, gender-fluid character, disabled (mute) character, disabled (burn victim) character.

Trigger/Content Warnings: gender dysphoria, misgendering, transphobia, violence, gore, dismemberment.

*Big Spoilers* about my King Arthur "conspiracy theory" below:

So I think the connection to Arthurian myth is purposely ambiguous, so that people can come to their own conclusions about whether this is merely coincidental, a cameo or nod to Arthurian legend, or meant to be a retelling of the Arthurian legend itself. I'm in the latter camp.

Anyway, what I believe is that Myrdhin IS Merlin (as it's very similar to the Welsh spelling, Myrddin), and would even suggest that Constantine is Arthur. For starters, Myrdhin is a gender-fluid wizard who is one with nature, much like the one and only Merlin. His other identity, Mori the witch, bears a resemblance to Morganna/Morgan le Fay. Their horse is named Nimue, which is the lady of the lake, who guides Constantine at certain points in the story. The silver bracelets Mori gifts to Constantine parallel excalibur, as they help Constantine forge his connection to the land and his people.

Furthermore, Constantine forges a bond with a woman named Gwen, and possibly marries her, though this remains ambiguous. There's also a cameo of a character named Owain, who you may also know as Yvain, one of Arthur's knights. Could it be a random Owain? Sure! But based on the other nods to Arthurian legend, I doubt it.

BASICALLY, the story is rife with cameos. They may simply be nods to lore that would have occurred around this time, or even a hint that Arthur is out there somewhere else, and this is just an interlude of the wizard Merlin/Myrdhin that we get to see. However, there's an important theme that Myrdhin shares with Constantine, and that is that there is power in the names you give yourself. That, and that a person may have many names. Constantine ends the story by sharing that there are many stories told of him, and he's often left out of his sisters' narrative. This begs the question, could he be a part of a different narrative? Perhaps one of an unconventional King who must prove himself worthy to his people through his connection to the land? A Romano-British King of unquestionable charisma and leadership potential, who has an unshakeable friendship with a powerful wizard? Who drove back the Saxons, if only for a time? A King with ties to Tintagel (which is referenced in the book by its Corninsh name, Dintagel)?

The book ends with Myrdhin and the spectral Constantine finding Sinne again sometime in the future (once and future king, anybody???), when magic has left the land. They are described as the oldest of friends. And who would be more important to Myrdhin than Arthur himself? And to answer, "Well why wouldn't Myrdhin refer to him as Arthur, then?" Well, just as Mori both is and is not Myrdhin, Constantine and Arthur may be separate identities of the same person, but Constantine represents his truest self: the name he first chose for himself.

So that's my long an convoluted reasoning for why this is also an origin story for a trans King Arthur.