The Betrayals by Bridget Collins
Published by HarperCollins
Age Group: Adult
Format: Fiction
Genres and Categories: British Authors, Bisexual Characters, Mental Health Representation, Queer Characters, Historical Mystery, Miscellaneous History, Mythology: Mixed, Academia, Alternative Universe
My Rating:
Published on: 18th May 2021
Pages: 336
Disability Representation: Mental Health, Suicide
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At Montverre, an ancient and elite academy hidden high in the mountains, society’s best and brightest are trained for excellence in the grand jeu—the great game—an arcane and mysterious competition that combines music, art, math, poetry, and philosophy. Léo Martin once excelled at Montverre but lost his passion for scholarly pursuits after a violent tragedy. He turned to politics instead and became a rising star in the ruling party, until a small act of conscience cost him his career. Now he has been exiled back to Montverre, his fate uncertain.

But this rarified world of learning Léo once loved is not the same place he remembers. Once the exclusive bastion of men, Montverre’s most prestigious post is now held by a woman: Claire Dryden, also known as the Magister Ludi, the head of the great game. At first, Léo feels an odd attraction to the magister—a mysterious, eerily familiar connection—though he’s sure they’ve never met before.

As the legendary Midsummer Game approaches—the climax of the academy’s year—long-buried secrets rise to the surface and centuries-old traditions are shockingly overturned.

This book was provided for free by Black Crow PR, NetGalley and the publishers in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to the publisher and the author for the opportunity to read this book!

Content Warnings:

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Please note that The Betrayals features a suicide, and this review discusses that part of the book. That discussion is the spoiler section of the review.

This would have been a very different review if I had not learned that the author had been seen actively engaging with anti-transgender tweets on Twitter before writing it. I’d already had some misgivings while reading The Betrayals, and finding this out about the author confirms some thoughts I had previously dismissed. As a result, this review is not completely spoiler-free; however, don’t worry, I’ll be placing the spoiler section under a spoiler cut, so it can be skipped if wished.

I thoroughly enjoyed Collins’ previous novel, The Binding, a historical fantasy novel which blew me away, and I was looking forward to more of the same in The Betrayals. In some ways, Collins did deliver, with the same twists and turns that kept me on the edge of my seat. I found the whole setting of this one quite confusing, and it took me a while to realise that, despite being described as “an arcane and mysterious contest”, the grand jeu is a belief system where male students learn to compete against one another to create compositions that are more akin to a type of musical composition than magic. I kept expecting them to get to a point where they would have grand magical duels once they had got through all the theory and philosophy (and there is a lot of both), and it never happened.

The Betrayals is listed as fantasy, and honestly, I’m not quite sure why. At best, it is alternative historical fiction due to the belief system that shuns Christianity. As a Pagan, I have to admit it was interesting to see a book where there was another leading religion, and Christians were the ones being ostracised, although one organised religion is much the same as another, as seen by their actions.

Like her previous book, the tangle weave of relationships is at the heart of Collins’ novel, and this is the part I need to talk about in detail. This spoils the entire plot of the book, so please do not read any further if you do not want the book spoiled for you.

Thanks for reading my review of The Betrayals by Bridget Collins!

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