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The Reckless Oath We Made by Bryn Greenwood

Contemporary fiction

The Reckless Oath We Made

Repeat author

Bryn Greenwood is back at Book of the Month – other BOTMs include All the Ugly and Wonderful Things.

by Bryn Greenwood

Excellent choice

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Quick take

Strong Don Quixote vibes, from the author of 2016 Book of the Year winner All the Ugly and Wonderful Things. Better brush up on ye Olde English.

Good to know

  • Illustrated icon, 400

    400+ pages

  • Illustrated icon, Multiple_Viewpoints

    Multiple viewpoints

  • Illustrated icon, Quirky

    Quirky

  • Illustrated icon, Snarky

    Snarky

Synopsis

Zee is nobody's fairy tale princess. Almost six-foot, with a redhead's temper and a shattered hip, she has a long list of worries: never-ending bills, her beautiful, gullible sister, her five-year-old nephew, her housebound mother, and her drug-dealing boss.

Zee may not be a princess, but Gentry is an actual knight, complete with sword, armor, and a code of honor. Two years ago the voices he hears called him to be Zee's champion. Both shy and autistic, he's barely spoken to her since, but he has kept watch, ready to come to her aid.

When an abduction tears Zee's family apart, she turns to the last person she ever imagined—Gentry—and sets in motion a chain of events that will not only change both of their lives, but bind them to one another forever.

Free sample

Get an early look from the first pages of The Reckless Oath We Made.

The Reckless Oath We Made

Chapter 1

Zee

People talk about having an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other. I had a pair of imaginary bill collectors, so no matter which way I turned, there was somebody to remind me I needed money. That’s how I ended up on a train at four o’clock in the morning with my nephew and a hundred pounds of weed.

We were hours behind schedule, but the westbound Southwest Chief was running on time. When the two trains met each other, they rattled back and forth, and the air that leaked in through the vents smelled like diesel and burning brakes. I could see into the other train’s windows, where a few people were still awake. Usually, it made me feel lonely, seeing those people so close but separated from me.

This time felt different. Having Marcus’ head resting in my lap reminded me I wasn’t alone. He was small like his mother and dark-?haired like his father, but when he was asleep, he was like me. Always running hot and trying to burrow his way into things. After hours of him sleeping on me, my hip hurt so much I kept hoping he would wake up, but he slept through the railroad crossing bells in every small town we went through. When he did wake up, rolling over and grinding his forehead into me, I didn't make him move. I smoothed his hair down and said, "Shh, it's okay. I'm here. Go back to sleep."

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Why I love it

Get ready to call in sick so you can devour one of the most imaginative novels of the year! Its wildly original story full of achingly real characters will have you turning the pages like you’re competing in an Olympic reading event.

Zhorzha Trego has a world of problems. She lives with her gullible older sister and five-year-old nephew in Kansas. She waits tables (and sells pot) to try and make ends meet; she is in chronic pain; her mother is a recluse who has filled their family home with junk; her father died in prison; and now there has been an abduction that hits close to home. Enter Gentry, a neurodiverse young man who thinks he is a knight—he literally speaks in Medieval English—whose voices have told him to save Zhorzha. Together, like the characters in Greenwood’s last novel, All the Ugly and Wonderful Things, they will change each other’s lives forever.

Three words: What a book! I loved these characters in all their sweet, damaged glory. And you can tell Greenwood does, too. As soon as I started reading this book, I couldn’t wait to see where she was taking them. I will be 100% honest with you—it took me a page to get used to Gentry’s way of speaking, but then I found it added so much more to the story. This is an unusual, beautiful novel, and I was sad to see it end.

Member ratings (5,561)

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Repeat authors
View all
The Bodyguard
Margo’s Got Money Troubles
House of Glass
Like Mother, Like Daughter
The Lost Story
The Night Swim
The Pairing
Beach Read
Hera
The God of the Woods
One-Star Romance
The Paradise Problem
We Are the Brennans
Daisy Jones & The Six
This Tender Land
The Silent Patient
The Four Winds
You Are Not Alone
One by One
Yours Truly
Invisible Girl
The Rules of Magic
Survive the Night
Troubles in Paradise
Home Before Dark
The Lost Apothecary
Things You Save in a Fire
Real Americans
The Wishing Game
One Day in December
The Great Alone
People We Meet on Vacation
The Reckless Oath We Made
Lock Every Door
The Family Upstairs
Long Bright River
Infinite Country
Part of Your World
Recursion
The Half Moon
A Ladder to the Sky
The Sun Down Motel
The Mothers
The Vanishing Half
Memorial
The Shadows
Immortal Longings
Just for the Summer
The Connellys of County Down
The Knockout Queen
Happy & You Know It
Ask Again, Yes
Practical Magic
Lot
The Woman in Cabin 10
Dark Matter
All the Ugly and Wonderful Things
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Final Girls
Hello Stranger
The Heart’s Invisible Furies
The Wife Between Us
The Broken Girls
In a Holidaze
The Kiss Quotient
The Last Time I Lied
Gods of Jade and Shadow
A Million Junes
The Bride Test
Darling Girls
The Turn of the Key
The Last Word
Dark Corners
Foul Lady Fortune
Evil Eye
The Soulmate