Le Fay
This is the second in Keetch’s Arthurian trilogy, and I have rarely been so impressed by the technical skill of an author; I went straight out to buy the first book. What I loved was the character arc, which starts with Morgan as a young woman, rather naive, with a talent for healing that goes a little beyond the norm; loving working with her dazzling brother for the good of Camelot, and grateful for his protection against her brutish husband. The pace ramps up, insult by insult, until she is an embittered sorceress, everyone she has loved (with the exception of her household) ripped from her, and she is sworn to destroy the empty gold shell that her brother rules over. Through all of this, you are on her side; you feel the pain of each blow dealt her, and see the logic of the steps she takes to counter them. Keetch lets us feel the joy as well as the pain, in a wholly sympathetic rendering of a woman whose name has been besmirched by time. I was delighted to find that Merlin was the baddie – and a thoroughly dislikeable one; and thrilled to discover some of the old faerie magic in the tale.
I will now wait with no patience at all for the third to be released.
