I am Morgan le Fay – Nancy Springer

Read for the Once Upon a Time Challenge.

This is the story of a girl named Morgan, whose father was killed by a cruel king, who then took her mother away.   Her mother was able to protect Morgan and her sister Morguase for a time, but after the death of the king, the girls were forced to flee to the forest, because many lords would take advantage of the step-daughters to the king.   Fortunately, their nurse was a wise woman, and was able to teach Morgan much before the Fay people summoned Morgan to Avalon, which led to her greater destiny.

This book certainly goes a long way to explain how Morgan le Fay could turn against her brother Arthur – certainly the actions of Arthur’s father, Uther, were nothing but cruel.    And Morgan is a sympathetic character throughout the book.    What lost me was a very end, when she finally decides that she’s going to work against Arthur.    Frankly, it felt like it came out of nowhere, even though the book had otherwise laid some great groundwork for some of the little things that could lead to this decision.    But there was no one great thing that caused this rift, and for that, I was a little disappointed in the story.