Morgan is the daughter of Igraine and Gorlais, the Duke of Cornwall. When Uther Pendragon seizes Igraine and kills Gorlais, young Morgan is thrust out into the wider world. Trying to find her way in the world of Dark Ages Britain, her fate proves inescapably linked with that of King Arthur (her half-brother) and his Knights of the Round Table.

This book is a sequel to In the Shadow of the Oak King, but can easily be read as a stand-alone book. As with the previous book, magic is limited to telepathy and telempathy. Professor Jones' use of the old customs that would have been present in Arthur's Britain makes for some fascinating and informative reading. I wholeheartedly recommend this book to any fan of King Arthur.

Author Courtway Jones takes us once again to the Kingdom of Camelot. This second installment is this time told from the prospective of Morgan, daughter of Igraine and her first husband. Morgan becomes half sister to Arthur when King Uther takes the Lady Igraine for himself. Morgan's story of being trained by the Lady of the Lake, going off to raise the sons of a widower, and then returning to the intrigues at Camelot keeps the reader riveted. Jones develops his characters so well that you can see them in your minds eye and you find yourself swept up in the intrigue as though you are there. This book leaves the reader with a true sense of what the characters of legend might really have been experiencing. They are very realistically portaited. There are simple reasons for the way the story plays out, rather than the mystical stories usually spun around Camelot. This reader hopes that the next book is as good as the last two.

Robert Morgan's collection of eleven short stories spans over 200 years of American history. Each story is told in first-person point of view. Five of the stories are told by women, and the narrators range in age from about twelve to late eighties. Several of these stories are so well-written, they are sure to be included in short story anthologies. Morgan varies his style of writing throughout the collection, and he gives glimpses of life in the North Carolina mountains from pre-colonial days to the present. Along the way, he shows that though times may have changed, people remain pretty much the same. Two stories are especially powerful. "Watershed" and "Mack" were two of my favorites. "Watershed" gives a unique look at life in the mountains when settlers were still challenging the Indians over the land. "Mack" is set in the present and is narrated by an elderly man who suffers from a very weak heart. His story focuses on what he has learned from life and from his dog Mack. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has interest an in history, the South, and people in general.

The careful reader of the Whipping Boy will note that Morgan accepts few of the stereotypes of the southwestern frontier. For example, Hanging Judge Parker has become a symbol to liberals of the mindlessly violent injustice of frontier justice, especially as by the 1880s Federal officials began working to undermine Parker's authority;Morgan reveals that Federal officials chiefly opposed Parker because he strictly enfoced the law to protect the Indians in what is now Oklahoma from both marauding criminal whites and from the Federal government itself that coveted their land and eventually would strip the Nations of their final sovereignty. The novel's time period is 1894, after the great land rush and when a combination of Federal officials and northeastern businessmen with experience in coal and oil began furtively plotting to destroy the Nations and create a larger Oklahoma ruled for and by the interests of those businessmen and their government allies, using white farmers as pawns to weaken the Indian Nations and to convince the American populace this was for the good of the USA as a whole - the same argument that propped the removal of the 5 Tribes from the southeast to what would be eastern Oklahoma.

Morgan didn't need the graphic sex scenes, and his presentation of the Presbyterian pastor who runs the orphanage for Indian boys is the one stock character living up to stereotypes. But The Whipping Boy is a better novel, in some ways vastly so, than the recent bestselling Toni Morrison work also set in Oklahoma, Paradise.

I found this novel to be a wonderful read despite it being a little slow going at the start.

Julie Harmon Richards is a young woman, at the turn of the 20th century, learning to deal with life and love in the Appalachian mountains. She marries Hank at the tender age of 17 and begins to learn the true meaning of hardship and suffering. They leave her family behind and start fresh in Gap Creek. Julie and Hank must fend for themselves in every aspect of their lives. They face con artists, death, floods, fire and childbirth. Starvation and loneliness also enter into the picture.

Julie has always known hardship and hard work, her work ethic is unbelievably strong. Her unending courage and determination throughout the book inspired me. She grows from a young girl into a young woman at a fast pace during the first year of her marriage to Hank. Her love for him never wavers and in the process her spirituality grows as well.

The ending left me wanting more ~ did they ever find the happiness that they so deserved? Will life get easier for this pair who struggled with so much? Mr. Morgan leaves it to us the reader to decipher the true ending...in my mind it's a happy one. They get to start anew.

With gripping storytelling and a strong and endearing main character, Robert Morgan's Gap Creek doesn't just tell the reader about the 1800's, it draws the reader into the pages of a world that is very different yet psychologically identical to the modern day.
The protagonist, Julie Harmon, is an extremely hard worker with a patient and sensitive soul. During Julie's struggle to maintain her marriage and her home, almost any reader can identify with her complicated feelings towards other people: common emotions of hatred,responsibility, anxiety and love. It is through the first person narration that Robert Morgan so vividly illustrates her thoughts.
Gap Creek allows readers of any age to fully appreciate modern technology. The sweat-provoking and often gruesome tasks of American life were just routine for growing families at the turn of the century. Even medicines and doctors weren't efficient enough to save people from most diseases, and childbirth as displayed in the book through amazing prose was much more complicated and painful than it is today.
Robert Morgan gives his characters a growing insight to life, and death. While Julie and her husband strive to understand and appreciate each other, they also strive to find themselves religiously. They use prayer and forgiveness to their advantage as their spirituality grows, although like a lot of people it takes many moments of doubt before their true beliefs set in.
Gap Creek is an eternal record of human nature. All of the elements of life: the struggles against the wilderness, clashing personalities between different people, and the happiness and hardships of starting a life with a spouse in a new place allow Gap Creek to grasp the attention of anyone fascinated with the lifestyles of the late 1800's, and anyone fascinated with life in general.

This story of a young couple's hardships in the turn-of-the-century Appalachians gave me appreciation for our modern conveniences. I found myself yearning, however, for the honest hard work and satisfaction of living off the land. Morgan's style was crude at times--maybe intentionally--but I've read other novels that captured that same gritty character with a bit more passion. When Julie's newlywed sister comes to visit, for example, Morgan describes their laughter in every other paragraph. I got the point after the first two times. He could have plumbed the emotion and history with more feeling and depth...or maybe just more writing elbow-grease. But let's face it: this book works its way under your skin, demanding attention, or at least a reaction. Julie and Hank's relationship seems devoted, but more guarded than modern relationships. In the end, I enjoyed the coming together of the family, even through tragedy. The story had a message of hope, asking us to love others more than ourselves. Through its simple beauty and spartan writing, Gap Creek eventually made its way into my heart.