Le Fay by Sophie Keetch: Book Review

 

Le Fay by Sophie Keetch
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

And they should fear me, the power I possessed, and the bright, ravenous rage that now fuelled my every breath. From that moment onwards, even I did not know what I was capable of.

Sophie Keetch's Le Fay tracks Morgan's journey from her ambiguous morality to in the first book Morgan Is My Name to... still ambiguous morality, even with the incredible premise, through all her losses suffered, despite the number of times she threatens to burn everything, and against all the potential antagonists.

Like the first book, there are some good secondary characters, but all the antagonists are one-dimensional men... the King of Gore returns of course, but even Merlin is portrayed as weirdly one-dimensional, and it takes some imagination to fit a potentially jealous credit-stealing male academic mentor like Merlin to a brilliant student like Morgan into the lecherous misogynist trope.

This book could have explored more of Morgan's relationship with Arthur and Guinevere, and how it devolves, but all we hear is the number of times Morgan says Arthur was her dear brother and she his trusted advisor. It would have been great to actually see Morgan help Arthur with any of the various aspects of running a kingdom, but we only see her help plan a tournament at the beginning of the book while trying to avoid Guinevere. Accolon's return starts off childish squabbles between them, which might have evolved into a mature relationship, but given the many number of times we hear that, it gives the exact opposite impression. And finally, we really should have seen Morgan explore her magic and study healing to the fullest extent here, but this is overridden by trying to blame Merlin for introducing dark magic to Morgan. Morgan le Fay's magic should have been the one thing that was completely hers!

In short, could have, would have, might have, should have is my review.

And all of this in Keetch's writing style, which I enjoyed in the first book, but was just too descriptive in this book.

To hear him tell it so plaintively was to feel it as the truth—Arthur’s truth, different from mine but no less lived and felt. I gazed across at this man, this King, my brother, his eyes shining silver with grief. His argument was convincing and logical, and blisteringly, devastatingly wrong.

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada publishing group for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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[3/4 star for the premise; Half a star for the characters; Half a star for the story arc; 1/4 star for the writing; 3/4 star for the world-building- 2 3/4 stars in total, rounded up to 3 stars.]


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