The Bright Sword by Grossman, Lev

Grossman, Lev

Fantasy

Published on 26 June 2025 by Cornerstone (Penguin (Cornerstone)) in the United Kingdom.

Paperback | 688 pages
196 x 129 x 45 | 474g

A book of the year for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Time, Vulture, Esquire, Goodreads, Elle, NPR, Vox, New York Post, Lit Hub, Cosmo, People, Paste, Vanity Fair, Polygon, BookBub, BookRiot and more!This Year’s Must-Read Novel . . . Grossman’s lyrical prose has never been better’FORBES’If you love King Arthur as much as I do, you’ll love The Bright Sword . . . the creator of The Magicians has woven another spell.’GEORGE R. R. MARTIN, author of A Game of ThronesMade me love fantasy again . . . For pretty much everyone, The Bright Sword is a must-read’PASTE MAGAZINE, Book of the YearThe best fantasy of the year.’THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, Book of the YearResoundingly earns its place among the best of Arthurian tales . . . Grossman is at the top of his game.’NEW YORK TIMES, Book of the Year’For anyone who’s ever craved a seat at the Round Table. Utterly enchanting.’REBECCA YARROS, author of Fourth WingFans of classic fantasy and ancient magic will devour this one.’ELLE, Best books of the yearA rollicking, magical ride through Arthurian legend . . . A joyful new addition to the Arthurian canon a delight.’Alice Winn, author of In MemoriamNot only one of the best books of the year, but one of the best Arthurian novels ever it’s that good.’LIT HUB, Book of the Year’A beautifully written, suitably weird, very human take on King Arthur that feels both modern and ancient.’JOE ABERCROMBIE, author of The Devils’A breathtaking tale that honours past iterations while producing something entirely unexpected’ PUBLISHER’S WEEKLY’This is why we read fantasy.’AVA REID, author of Lady MacbethCompulsively readable and expertly told . . . You won’t want to leave until the tale is done.’VICTOR LAVALLE, author of Lone WomenThis is storytelling at its purest: glorious, propulsive, and dramatic’LOCUSWhen gifted young knight Collum arrives at Camelot to compete for a place on the Round Table, he quickly discovers that he’s too late: the king died two weeks ago at the Battle of Camlann, and only a handful of the knights of the Round Table are left.

The survivors aren’t the heroes of legend either, like Lancelot or Gawain. They’re the oddballs of the Round Table, like Sir Palomides, the Saracen Knight, and Sir Dagonet, Arthur’s fool, who was knighted as a joke. They’re joined by Nimue, who was Merlin’s apprentice until she turned on him and buried him under a hill.

It’s up to them to rebuild Camelot in a world that has lost its balance, even as God abandons Britain and the fairies and old gods are returning, led by Morgan le Fay. They must reclaim Excalibur and make this ruined world whole again.

But first they’ll have to solve the mystery of why the lonely, brilliant King Arthur fell.

The first major Arthurian epic of the new millennium, The Bright Sword is a story about imperfect men and women who are looking for a way to fight darkness and reforge a broken land