The Faerie Morgana feels grand in its Arthurian retelling, winding slowly through the beginning, middle and end of Arthur’s Camelot. Setting the story from Morgana’s perspective makes it an especially interesting story, complete with magic, mystery and plenty of intrigue. This isn’t a blood-soaked story filled with the ravages of war, but a return to a more poetic version of the story. To me, it was a welcome addition to an age-old genre.
The Faerie Morgana
By Louisa Morgan
Publish by Redhook
Genre: Fantasy
Subgenre: Fairy Tales, Sword & Sorcery, Arthurian Legend
This book was provided to me by NetGalley as an ARC in exchange for my honest, unbiased review.
The Best Bits
Braithe – she’s a great character and I was happy her role continued to grow
Shapeshifting – the descriptions were as magical as they deserved
Gwenvere as the villain – I didn’t expect that approach but it worked
A Few of My Favorite Things
The Narrative Style
I imagined the narrative to be akin to the first ten minutes of Lord of the Rings, narrated boldly by Cate Blanchett as a dramatic story unfolds. In this instance, the narrative didn’t impart grand happenings, but a somewhat slow story that felt more like poetry than a fantasy novel. It was fitting for the story the book was trying to tell and aligned well with Morgana’s persona. The style made everything feel more important than it maybe was, which had an interesting effect.
An Honest Look at a Magical Temple
It’s inevitable that a magical temple would have members with varying abilities. So many magic books have most characters on an equal playing field and I appreciated how the book took a different approach. We see most of the priestesses with no magic at all, pretending to have abilities they don’t have and being total mean girls if questioned. There were times this legit felt like a sorority filled with cliques and it was endlessly entertaining. The iffy magic of the most magical beings in the kingdom lent significant weight to Morgana’s ample abilities, making her seem all the more mythical in the story.
The Frustrations of Working with Humans
Imbuing the story with so much magic made it clear how unmagical humans actually are. Morgana has so much power and can heal or curse pretty much anyone, and these humans just do their silly court intrigues and wars, endlessly creating unnecessary drama. We see her constantly having to clean up their messes, make them charms, heal their wounds, and it’s hard to not wish she could just be in her temple doing goddess things.
The Genre Nerd 
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