Book Review: The Wayward Knight by Steve White

A tale of revenge, regret, and a lot of conflicting ideas.

The Wayward Knight wants to be Yu Yu Hakusho meets Arthurian legend, but it fumbles the tone, the structure, and the stakes. If you’re going to do waifu worldbuilding, commit. If not, cut it and tell a real story.

What’s the Book About?

The Wayward Knight tells the story of Joe, a modern guy who, in a moment of heartbreak and bitterness, wishes death on his romantic rival. But when a literal water goddess named Belisama grants his request, Joe finds himself bound to her service as her “knight.” She wants to make amends for past misdeeds, including punishing a knight of King Arthur’s court. Joe gets tangled up in an ancient myth, a new identity, and the consequences of actions, both his and hers, that may not be so easily undone.

It’s billed as a dark fantasy and mythic revenge tale for older teens (ages 16–18), with elements of horror, folklore, and modern fantasy.

What Went Wrong?

I’m going to be honest: this was a rough read for me. The book feels like three stories duct-taped together:

One part horror tale about demi-divine vengeance gone wrong. One part Arthurian tragedy. One part modern isekai-ish story with a waifu goddess and her dryad girl gang.

And instead of blending into something rich or epic, those tones clash. A lot.

The horror moments feel bizarre and inconsistent. The Arthurian sections are interesting in concept but written with dialogue that sounds way too modern. And the anime/harem vibes are strong, but weirdly neutered. The result is a book that can’t seem to decide what it wants to be, who it’s for, or what it’s trying to say.

Tone Confusion and the Audience Problem

Is this supposed to be YA? Adult fantasy? Soft horror with romance? Satire?

I’m honestly not sure. The prose feels like it's written for a younger audience, especially with how tame the “romance” is. Then again, the book includes brutal violence, ritual murders, and overt themes of betrayal and vengeance. There's even a scene where Belisama kills a female detective by grabbing and kissing her, pouring river water into her lungs. The text describes it as looking like a "lover’s embrace." That kind of thing makes me ask: who exactly is this book for?

If it had leaned further into adult horror, stripping away the cutesy fairy interactions and going all-in on vengeance, moral ambiguity, and mythology, it might have found its legs. Or if it had softened the violence, tightened the cast, and turned it into a YA Fantasy redemption arc, it might have worked that way too. That’s almost what it does in the later half, but it didn’t land for me.

Trying to do both made the whole thing feel off-balance.

Waifus, Dryads, and the Sexless Harem Problem

Let’s talk about the fairies and dryads. They’re all beautiful. They’re all women. They all like Joe. But they’re also all completely flat characters, and not in the way harem anime characters are intentionally tropey and exaggerated. They’re just... there. Vaguely flirty, occasionally motherly, weirdly loyal.

There’s a scene where Belisama heals Joe in a magical bath and crawls in with him. Nothing happens, but the vibe is there and then it disappears. There’s no tension. No consequences. No growth in their dynamic. If you’re going to go for waifu fantasy, then commit. If not, write the relationships with the weight they deserve.

It feels like the author might have been teasing some great romantic arc for Joe and Belisama, but it is unclear if Joe is “worthy” of her by the end of it or if she would deign to consort with him.

A Missed Opportunity for Thematic Depth

There’s a glimmer of something interesting here: a man makes at his lowest point makes a wish out of desperation and heartbreak and has to live with the consequences. That could’ve led to something powerful. Joe’s life is effectively over. He goes through this ordeal thanks to this supernatural woman and he gets a new chance at life. He is equipped with secret knowledge about this fantastical other world most think of as myth and he is now equipped to deal with those threats.

Joe’s journey reminds me, superficially, of Yusuke Urameshi. In Yu Yu Hakusho, Yusuke starts off as a street punk who dies and gets a second shot at life, one that demands growth, sacrifice, and learning to care about others. He builds bonds. He trains. He becomes powerful by becoming more himself, a truer, better version of who he already was. And all of that happens with real emotional clarity, even when the tone swings between slapstick and deadly serious.

Wayward Knight could have walked that same path. I think it tried to. Joe has a moment where he’s told to gain confidence in order to access his full potential. But the beats don’t land because the story isn’t cohesive. The tone isn’t grounded. The character arcs aren’t earned.

Worse still, Yu Yu Hakusho gives you waifus AND depth. It has dark moments, demonic fights, betrayal, abuse, but still manages to be more family-friendly than this book. And more meaningful.

Inconsistency Kills the Stakes

Joe is all over the place. He wants revenge. Then he regrets it. He won’t kill a pig, but he lets a goddess kill a man–he helps her kill the man. He’s horrified by violence, except when he’s not. The story doesn’t seem to know if he’s a hero, an antihero, or just a passive vehicle for other people’s decisions.

Belisama, too, is wildly inconsistent. Sometimes she’s a vengeful goddess, other times she’s a giggling anime girl. Sometimes she’s practically omnipotent, other times she’s in danger from mortal men with swords. These shifts don’t make sense and they feel like they are made to service the plot.

Craft and Structure Notes

The prose is... okay. Mostly good. But the dialogue, especially in the Arthurian flashbacks, is painfully modern. The characters don’t sound like they’re from ancient times. They sound like they just walked out of a coffee shop in Leeds.

There’s no stylistic shift between time periods. No effort to make the dryads or fae feel timeless or otherworldly. It flattens the setting and makes the mythology less convincing. If you’re going to jump between modern-day and ancient legend, your dialogue has to carry some of that weight.

Morality: Flawed, or Just Messy?

I thought at first the moral ambiguity might be intentional. Maybe this was a book about consequences, about the weight of killing, about what justice really means. But the more I read, the more I came to think: no, this isn’t purposeful ambiguity. It’s just messiness.

Characters don’t act with consistency. Deaths are treated like punchlines or plot devices. Big emotional beats don’t follow through.

Final Thoughts and Rating

I didn’t enjoy this book. But I think I could have.

The mythology was promising. The premise had intrigue. The emotional stakes could’ve been powerful. But the book never commits to genre, tone, audience, or moral center. And when a story doesn't know what it is, the reader feels it.

As it stands, The Wayward Knight is a jumble of cool ingredients thrown in a pot without a recipe. It wants to be mythic, modern, edgy, emotional, but never figures out how to be all those things at once or coherently. I am willing to give another Steve White book a chance, but I would not recommend this book to anyone.