Eliza Hampstead’s A Code of Knights and Deception blends time-slip historical fiction with a tense psychological journey, following Sophia, a disillusioned stay-at-home mother, as she is unexpectedly thrust into a medieval world after a visit to Warwick Castle. What begins as a simple solo trip soon turns into a bizarre and haunting experience where reality blurs, complete with knights, castles, and a creeping sense that something is terribly off. Her struggle to reconcile what’s happening with her rational mind propels a tense narrative that shifts between mystery, survival, and self-discovery.
The writing really grabbed me. Hampstead has this uncanny knack for showing claustrophobia and vulnerability without overexplaining. Sophia’s internal monologue is raw, honest, often sarcastic, and sometimes heartbreaking. I felt her fear, her desperation. That choking scene in the peasant’s hut was absolutely harrowing. The author doesn’t pull punches when describing the violence or emotional exhaustion Sophia endures. At the same time, the prose can be beautiful, too. There are moments, especially in descriptions of the castle or Sophia’s fleeting hopes, that feel like small sighs in the middle of a storm. The whole book keeps you off-balance, and I couldn’t stop flipping pages, needing to know if she’d wake up from the nightmare, or if it was never a dream at all.
This book isn’t just a thriller dressed up in chainmail. It's a sharp look at what it means to feel powerless in your own life. Sophia's journey through the medieval setting reflects her internal crisis: a woman smothered by expectations, by an unhappy marriage, by invisibility. There’s a quiet rage beneath it all, and it builds beautifully. Her yearning for independence is so relatable, and that makes her trauma hit harder. The story also plays with genre expectations in clever ways. You’re never quite sure if this is a psychological break, time travel, or some elaborate trap. That ambiguity made it addictive and unsettling.
A Code of Knights and Deception left me breathless and unnerved but in the best way. I’d recommend this book to fans of Outlander who like their history with more grit and less romance, or anyone who appreciates a layered, emotional, psychological mystery with a medieval twist. If you're looking for a story that makes you feel disoriented, a little scared, and totally invested, then this one’s for you.