Rachel Gillig Talks The Knave And The Moon, And Her Totally Different Next Book (EXCLUSIVE)

Custom Image by Hannah Diffey Rachel Gillig flips from gothic nights in The Knave and the Moon to cozy romantasy with a trickster Reynard, a cantankerous cat, and simmering pining. Published Aug 30, 2026, 11:00 AM EDT Hannah is a senior writer and self-publisher at ScreenRant. There, she focuses on writing news, features, and list-style articles about all things comics, books, anime, and manga. She works as a freelance writer in the entertainment industry, focusing on video games, anime, and literature. Her published works can be found on Screen Rant, FinanceBuzz, She Reads, and She Writes. Rachel Gillig’s Stonewater Kingdom has always felt like a place that exists somewhere between a dream and a nightmare, so saying goodbye to it in The Knave and the Moon is surprisingly difficult. Following 2025’s The Knight and the Moth, the new book delivers the gothic atmosphere, complicated relationships, and wonderfully strange magic that made its predecessor so memorable. The Knave and the Moon, via a generous advance review copy from Orbit, earns 4.5 stars, landing nearly as good as The Knight and the Moth while still standing as a deeply satisfying conclusion. Gillig gives Sybil, Rory, Bartholomew, and the rest of Stonewater room to grow, while expanding the kingdom’s history and lore. More importantly, the sequel feels like a genuine ending rather than an unnecessary continuation. The Knave And The Moon Is An Emotional Goodbye To Stonewater Orbit The greatest strength of The Knave and the Moon is still Gillig’s stunning atmosphere. Stonewater is simultaneously gothic, whimsical, eerie, and beautiful, creating the kind of setting that feels impossible to separate from the author's distinctive prose. The sequel ventures further into the kingdom while answering questions from the first installment and introducing new threats without losing that strange charm. "The Knave and the Moon was inspired by A Knights Tale" - Rachel Gillig There’s also a particularly fun influence behind The Knave and the Moon that readers might not immediately expect. Gillig revealed that the 2001 Heath Ledger film A Knight’s Tale helped inspire the novel, saying, “The Knave and the Moon was inspired by A Knight’s Tale.” That connection adds another layer to the book’s playful approach to knights, adventure, and medieval fantasy. The characters ultimately make The Knave and the Moon hit hardest. Sybil remains an exceptional protagonist, while Rory’s devotion and yearning continue to make him incredibly easy to root for. Bartholomew, meanwhile, is still one of the series’ most lovable oddities. The relationships between the characters are just as important as the romance, particularly when friendship, loyalty, and sacrifice begin colliding with the story’s larger dangers. While The Knave and the Moon is on par with its amazing predecessor, some of the conflicts feel easier to resolve than expected, and the stakes surrounding the antagonist occasionally lack the weight they seem to promise. The sequel also spends more time developing supporting characters, including Maude, sometimes leaving the main characters with slightly less room to breathe. But learning about those supporting characters was an absolute treat. Still, those complaints feel relatively minor beside how much the book gets right. The pacing is absolutely addictive, the emotional beats land, and Gillig understands exactly what made these characters special. Even with a few reservations about the stakes, The Knave and the Moon feels carefully constructed to bring the Stonewater Kingdom duology to a proper close. "I want readers to feel." - Rachel Gillig When asked what feeling she hoped readers would have after finishing The Knave and the Moon, Rachel Gillig said that she simply hopes that readers feel. Reading is a deeply personal and emotional experience, and Gillig expressed her joy at readers being so excited to get emotional over the Stonewater Kingdom duology finale. The Knave and the Moon is meant to be an emotional book, and it certainly succeeds at that. Rachel Gillig Is Already Moving In A Completely Different Direction Rachel Gillig While readers are preparing to leave Stonewater behind, Gillig is already taking a sharp turn with her next novel, As Bad Luck Would Have It. The upcoming Orbit Books release will be her first fantasy rom-com, and even its premise makes it clear that this is not anything like another version of the gothic fantasy that defined the Stonewater Kingdom or Shepherd King books. The story follows Orla Fogarty, who is pushed down a well on her wedding day and discovers Mallory Devlin waiting at the bottom. Mallory is a Reynard, a trickster from a darkly enchanted realm and the literal incarnation of Bad Luck. He has until the end of the month to collect 100 years of bad luck as part of a wager with his brother, Felix. Orla and Mallory make a bargain, where he helps her uncover which member of high society pushed her into the well, while she deliberately accumulates as much bad luck as possible to help him win his wager. Naturally, their arrangement becomes complicated as Orla’s new wedding approaches and their investigation brings them closer together. Gillig describes the book as a warm, cozy and self-indulgently romantic fantasy, with influences ranging from Howl’s Moving Castle to Bridgerton. “Romantasy as a genre doesn’t need to defend itself.” - Rachel Gillig That tonal shift is especially exciting because Gillig clearly isn't interested in staying inside one particular fantasy box. During our interview, she pushed back against the idea that romantasy needs to justify its place in the genre landscape, telling me, “Romantasy as a genre doesn’t need to defend itself.” As Bad Luck Would Have It sounds like another opportunity for her to explore exactly what she finds fun about romantic fantasy. And if The Knave and the Moon proves anything, it is that Gillig knows how to make unusual fantasy worlds feel emotionally intimate. This time, though, readers are getting magic, manners, mischief, intense pining, a cantankerous black cat, and a romance involving Bad Luck himself. After two books in Stonewater, that sounds like a very welcome change of scenery.