I am a huge fan of Robin Hood stories. There's something about the lore and legend of that story that is intriguing to me. When I found out this was not only a Robin Hood retelling, but one that includes a gender swapped Robin Hood, I had to read it. Plus, this cover begs to be picked up and read. It pains me to say this, but unfortunately this book fell pray to underdevelopment, and a blended YA / MG tone that left me wanting so much more than what I got from this story.

This is a book I picked up excepting to absolutely love. While there are some great elements to this story, there more that either felt underdeveloped or missing from the story all together. While the story starts off strong, shortly after it ended up feeling more of a mix of wanting to be a solid YA book, and an upper middle grade one. While there is older reader content, ie: rape, attempted suicide, violence etc, the tone of the story is very much a younger reader one.

Story wise, there was a lot missing with the story itself that felt like it was either under developed or lacked on being expanded on. From character development, to the romance, and the over all story. Betsy is a great writer, but with this story, I felt like it was underdeveloped. There are so many elements that could have been stronger in the story that felt like they were almost nonexistent. The story idea is a fun one, but there was so much lacking to make this a great story I was excepting it to be.

With Sylvie for example, I felt like we skipped from this sheltered girl who longed for something more, into someone who is all of a sudden taking a stand against her royal family linage. Yet in between the two there wasn't much shown in the story to make her this great Robin Hood type character I expected her to be. That is frustrating, because there is so much to her and her story I wanted to read about and see.

The characters for the most part were good. Some I liked more than others like Bird, Jane, and Mae. These characters were developed more than Sylvie's. Sylvie was by far the hardest one for me to connect with. With the romance, that too was sadly lacking from the story, and could have been far more believable than it was. I liked that Bird and Sylvie grew up together, and I got their connection, but I wanted to see it come to life. Jane and Sylvie had more of a connection than anyone else. Same could be said with the villain in the story. He wasn't this fearsome character that he should have been.

While I liked understanding how they were able to survive in the forest, too much of the story focused on that, and not enough on the character developments and the story itself. Don't get me wrong. I loved the story setting. The setting is a beautiful one, and so detailed that it's easy to picture Sherwood Forest and the surrounding areas. It shouldn't have felt the middle part of this story was all about their forest survival, like it did.

I'm so torn on this book. I liked the idea for this story, but it needed to be expanded on a lot more. Tone wise, if it didn't feel like it was confused on whether the voice was for YA or MG, and had it been one or the other, it would have been better. Just not the mix of both. The story idea is a fun one, but in the end left me wanting much more than I got from this story. I wanted to see things expanded on in greater detail and depth. I will say, if you're looking for a quick, not in depth read, than this is your book.

A robin hood retelling with a twist. Or a not so much twist. Gender should not be a twist anymore. I think with the latest Doctor from Doctor Who, Jodie Whittaker has been quoted saying ‘Women shouldn’t be a genre’ and I think that is so true. Women shouldn’t be a genre but what with mostly YA being read by young women it is not uncharacteristic to see retellings of this fashion. Personally, this one did not just click with me. I didn’t DNF it because I hoped it would get better but it just didn’t. I just don’t know what to say honestly. I see that this book has been getting quite low reviews and now I understand why.

3 out of 5 stars.

When sixteen-year-old Sylvie’s brother takes over management of their family’s vast estates in The Forest Queen, Sylvie feels powerless to stop his abuse of the local commoners. Her dearest friend asks her to run away to the woods with him, and soon a host of other villagers join them. Together, they form their own community and fight to right the wrongs perpetrated by the king and his noblemen. 
I received an eARC of The Forest Queen from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
I read most of The Forest Queen in one sitting, and while the world building was good, I couldn't help but feel like out should have been told from another perspective.
The Forest Queen needs trigger warnings for on page suicide attempt, food shortages, rape mention, corrupt police, murder, robbery, and incest mentions (siblings).
Cornwall wanted to create a Robin Hood retelling that focused on a heroine, but Silvie want really a heroine. there were no real stakes for her in The Forest Queen. Everything she needed fell into her lap, thanks to Bird and Little Jane. The writing was well enough, but nothing about it wowed me.
Bird and Little Jane were characters I would have loved to know more about. If anything, I would have liked to hear this story told from their perspectives, or perhaps together. They both led rich lives as commoners and discovered the injustices that Silvie only learned about because of them. I really would have liked to see more of the world from honestly any of the characters except the boring Forest Queen.
I wouldn't recommend this one, but I don't not recommend it either, if that makes sense. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't anything particularly great, in my opinion. Instead, try Charlotte Hamilton's queer Robin Hood retelling Lambs Can Always Become A Lion.

Betsy Cornwell's The Forest Queen is supposed to be the retelling of Robin Hood with a feminist angle. It's a story about how a corrupt, too-powerful leader and his inner circle thrive at the expense of the common people and how one girl fights for what's right and makes a difference. Lady Silviana of Loughsley chooses to make a stand against her older brother, who just happens to be Sheriff John of Loughsley, after she learns that he is as much as a brute outside of the home, as he is at home.

The clutch comes when John attempts to marry Silvie off to someone who is much older than she is, and someone she once had a crush on after she "ruins" Prince Rioch's first hunting day. I could tell you that this is a story about a young woman who goes from a spoiled noble, to learning how to take care of herself, to learning how to accept who she's become in order to help others who have been unfairly treated, and unfairly taxed, and unfairly sent to prison because the King, Prince, and Sheriff like living the lap of luxury.

The author spends too much time with Silvie and her boyfriend Robert "Bird" Falconer, son of the huntswoman, running away into the woods and talking about the good ole days where they were free to climb trees and act like kids, and not have adult expectations shoved at them. Yes, there are moments of disagreement. Then they discover Little Jane who appears to have chosen to kill herself while being pregnant. Next comes Mae Tuck, who is a supposed to be a traveling midwife.

As you can tell, the story drags along for while as Silvie, Jane, Mae, and Bird gather those who have been treated like dogs by the Sheriff, the Prince, and the King. To make matters worse, Sheriff John suddenly becomes a pervert, and perhaps a serial rapist as well, who may have also abused his own sister. Wow. Not the Robin Hood I remember. Nor any of the retelling's since. While the idea behind the story was a good one, I am not so sure if this is what anyone would have expected from the writer.

Personally, I expected more of the Robin Hood, and not a Maid Marian type character. Silvie is apparently good with a bow as we see in the Prologue, but I'm not sure that's good enough to carry the story. There have, and will be other books retelling Robin Hood with a gender twists in the future. I dare say that I hope they don't follow this authors huge letdown. I would suggest that if you go in looking for sweeping tales of heroism and stunning fight scenes, you may be disappointed.

This is a telling of the Robin Hood legend, with some parts familiar and others changed to suit the characters.
Sylvie has got used to the cruelty of her brother, the new sheriff of the land. He is accustomed to treating others as he sees fit in order to improve his own standing. There comes a time when Sylvie can take it no more and she runs away to live in the forest with her childhood friend.
We watch Sylvie - the forest queen as she comes to be known - as her pairing quickly becomes a ragtag group of rebels, people who are determined not to give in to the sheriff’s demands.
The story has some interesting moments, but it really seemed to focus on exploring how their rebellion might continue.
Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this prior to publication in exchange for my thoughts.

CW/TW: Rape, suicide, child birth

This had quite a bit of potential to be a fun, female-driven retelling of Robin Hood. Unfortunately, the book stumbles and I couldn't get passed a few things. Mostly, that none of the female characters had not much of an identity outside the males in their life. Sylvie's all about Bird or all about hating her brother. The 1.5-minute long Robin Hood song from Shrek gave him more characterization than I got in my brief reading.

Little Jane's backstory is the biggest flaw. Little John from folklore was a simply a giant man whose name was ironic. The way his female alter ego is presented makes her size something to be ashamed about, not to mention she is pregnant and her whole character arc becomes about that. I was disappointed and the experience was simply unpleasant. None of it is handled well, not to mention how the fact that her introduction is an attempted suicide is never brought up again.

From the first pages, I thought this was going to be a cute retelling, but what The Forest Queen turned into was uncomfortable at the most benign.

I love retellings and a gender-swap Robin Hood retelling would definitely be something that I would love. Perhaps my expectations were too high, but “The Forest Queen” fell short.

After her brother John becomes the new sheriff, Lady Silviana of Loughsley, or just Silvie, runs to the forest with her best friend Bird and Little Jane, a pregnant girl that she and Bird rescue. The forest becomes a sanctuary from the sheriff’s evil doing – a place where one can be free and Silvie can protect her people from her brother.

The plot was so alluring, but the book was so short that it wasn’t well developed. If it had had a few more pages, the characters (which lacked depth; they were very one-dimensional) and the plot could have been better developed. Also, there were too many characters! And some of them didn’t add anything to the plot. These pages/chapters could have been used to develop the other characters or maybe to write a longer ending since it felt so rushed.

However, this book does discuss some series issues [TRIGGER WARNING] as rape, suicide and abortion. These are themes that should be discussed more in books in such an openly way.

I did not finish this book, the synopsis is what got me. A female robin hood story? Definitely got my attention, but upon reading, I found that the story, while well written. Did not grab my attention and I had a hard time continuing.

I was not invested enough in the stories of the characters to find out what happened to them later on. Unfortunately it did not capture my attention.

Thank you for the chance to read the book.

The Forest Queen is a retelling of Robin Hood and I was excited to read it but, alas, it wasn't as good as I expected. The characters weren't fully developed, and some of them made just an appearance and nothing more, the worldbuilding was too simplistic, not much elaborated and the story itself didn't captivated me enough. It's a pity because it had the potential to be a good story.

A unique, gender-flipped retelling of Robin Hood perfect for the younger side of young adult audiences. I'll be recommending to readers on the older side of middle grade as a good transition to "older" material.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley as an ARC. This review contains no paid promotion for receiving this ARC and my review is given truthfully with no influence outside of my own opinion.
This may contain slight spoilers.
Within the first pages of this book I was struck. My heart ached a bit in the prologue with the introduction of a brother who would watch his sister, almost lecherously. Then we move into the hunt. John’s personality was evident without being necessarily evil. He wasn’t a “bad” person, but he wasn’t a good or kind one. The scene of the hunt was where I knew I would be enjoying this book because my heart ached again, for different reasons than the first. As the retelling of Robin Hood progresses, so too do the characters. This is my only complaint in the book- The growth of one of the characters seems too flighty, insubstantial when it could be based on all she goes through. The ending is a nice and tidy wrap up needing some measure of suspension of belief.
The author does a good job of placing the reader among the wilderness of this world. The greens, the sky, the description of both gives a feeling of the wide open and towering closeness of forests. The interwoven aristocracy view point with the girl who grew up in the trees is flawless. The story line is very true to a tale of Robin Hood all the while full of strong women who aren’t relying on men to lead.
I was impressed by how quickly I devoured this book, in hours, not losing interest in the story line despite some areas of the book having less conflict.

This is a re-working of Robin Hood with the Robin Hood figure recast as a young woman. She gathers a group of people to support her and they work to undermine the current government officials, including her brother, the sheriff. There are some big themes here of prejudice, class struggles, gender issues, and human rights as well as abuse of power. This would be great to compare to the original Robin Hood.

I'm always in for a good Robin Hood retelling, but Betsy Cornwells's Forest Queen was not the best I've ever read. It was okay, but also 'meh' in some point.

I really liked the whole idea and the characters was not so bad, but I just lost my interest about the story while reading the book. I think I had too high expectations and the whole book just ended up being so different from what i was anticipating.

When I first picked up The Forest Queen, by Betsy Cornwall, I didn't know what to expect. Would this be a story of female empowerment? An adventure story? Would there be intrigue and romance? The answer is YES to all of it. I found this book to be fun, and moving. Once I started it, I could not put it down.

What I Liked:
Setting:

As with most stories with "Queen" in the title, this book takes place in an unnamed medieval country with plenty of lords and ladies, castles, and forests. What made this setting unique was that there were also people of color mixed in. There has been a controversy in the book world about diversity in books such as these. Some people say, "Well, there weren't people of color in Europe in the Middle Ages". Others correctly point out that in a fictional novel you can make your characters any color you want! I am happy to report that the author chose the latter view. In this story, it's the people with darker skin who are the "noble" families. But there has been so much inter-mingling between groups that most people have traits of many cultures. I loved that.

Characters:

I really enjoyed how all the characters changed over the course of this book. Sylvie starts the story as a somewhat naive, privileged young woman. She does know that others have a much harder time in life, but she hasn't seen it firsthand. The nobles take almost everything through taxes, leaving peasants to nearly starve. When she is confronted with this reality, Sylvie begins to see everything differently.

There are many other memorable characters such as Little Jane, Bird, Mae Tuck, and the troubadour Alana Dean. All have experience with the unjust treatment of the nobles towards peasants. Little Jane, in particular, haunts me. She is pregnant (from rape), and goes from a frightened, hopeless girl, to a warm, confident mother. Her healing was heartening to see.

Story:

It doesn't mention it in the synopsis, but this story is loosely based on Robin Hood. This may seem silly, at first. But the author uses this story to show a world where people who are oppressed finally fight back to gain freedom.

There was plenty of suspense as Sylvie runs away from her comfortable life as a noble and into the forest. Will she be caught by her lecherous brother, Sheriff John? As more and more people join them, I was worried for everyone's safety!

Later, as Sylvie starts to "take from the rich and give to the poor', there's also the constant threat of discovery and imprisonment. I like that while Sylvie is doing this for honorable reasons, she also acknowledges the lines she is crossing (and that she gets a thrill from stealing).

Romance:

I enjoyed the tension and possible romance between Sylvie and Bird. Childhood friends, these two must set aside questions of attraction in order to survive out in the woods. They are too busy finding enough to eat to worry about romance. I like that later, as they settle in, they are reluctant to be a couple as they don't want to ruin their friendship.

There is also some fun, same-sex romance for other characters! I love that in this universe women and men find their own way to happiness without judgement.

Trigger Warning for Rape:
Rape is a theme in this book. While there are no actual descriptions of the act itself, this may be upsetting to some readers.

When sixteen-year-old Sylvie’s brother takes over management of their family’s vast estates, Sylvie feels powerless to stop his abuse of the local commoners. Her dearest friend asks her to run away to the woods with him, and soon a host of other villagers join them. Together, they form their own community and fight to right the wrongs perpetrated by the king and his noblemen.

One of my favorite things to do when I receive a new book from publishers via Netgalley, is to hold off rereading the summary of the book until I actually start reading it. It gives me the opportunity to be completely surprised by a book. This was especially enjoyable with The Forest Queen, as I had the chance to read through the book and piece together that this story is a retelling of the Robin Hood, but with some unique twists and turns. Robin Hood is one of my favorite stories so once I realized what the book was about, I was really excited to see it through to the end.

The writing and descriptions in this book was absolutely beautiful. From the opening paragraph to the epilogue, there are great descriptions of the landscape and setting of the book. I especially loved the scenes about how Sylvie and the others developed their new life in the woods, hunting, fishing, and creating their home. I don't get read a lot of "survival" stories in my genre so I enjoyed delving into that aspect of the plot. 

The main character Sylvie, is a strong-willed girl who wants badly to affect change although she comes from a place of strong privilege. She goes through a number of internal conflicts through the plot, and has a lot of obstacles to overcome. I enjoyed seeing her develop and also enjoyed her chemistry with the other character, particularly with Bird. Bird was a fun character to get to know and while he's the love interest for Sylvie, he's also her foil character, and opposes her at almost every turn. There were a lot of characters in the book, but I didn't feel like many of them were fully developed or necessarily memorable, other than Sylvie and Bird. 

This plot had a lot of promise. Everyone knows the story of Robin Hood, but with the role reversals in this story, I looked forward to seeing a new face on the original tale. There were definite moments when I was invested in the story and the plot was fast moving so the book was a quick and easy read. I was disappointment with the end, though. Many plot points were introduced to the story but nothing ever became of them. It made me wonder why they were brought up in the first place. The book was also very short, I felt like the author could have drawn the story out a bit more and done more with those plot points or make the story more complex. 

The Forest Queen is a great book if you love the legend of Robin Hood and enjoy reading gender-swaps or role-reversals. The book was a quick and easy read. I felt compelled by the plot and loved the descriptions, but felt like the characters could be more developed. The ending was somewhat disappointing, but will be great for casual readers. There are dark and sexual elements to the book, so I recommend it to the higher age group of the YA audience.

This book was a showstopper for me. I picked it up early one morning and didn't put it down until it was finished. There's just something about the plot and the characters that hooked me in really early, and the pacing of the story was so on-point that it never lagged enough to break my immersion in the story.

There were a lot of things in this story that I deeply appreciated- the romance that didn't overwhelm the story, the female friendships, the talk of how having a baby/not having a baby was a woman's choice, and the element of the "found/created family". I think without these things, this could have been another bland retelling but Cornwell did a fantastic job of writing a feminist novel that stayed true to a time period when women were little more than property and were often pitted against each other.

If you are a reader with delicate sensibilities, I think it's fair to warn you that there are some really troubling scenes in this book that include: descriptive animal abuse/animal death, descriptive suicide attempt, themes of incest, rape, descriptive childbirth, and descriptive scenes of death/decay/decomposition of humans.

This is a retelling of Robin Hood but with a Female lead. She escapes and fights back against the Sheriff along with her friends she met along the way. I found the story a little difficult to get into but overall a decent book.

I usually enjoy retellings but this one didn’t do it for me. I’m not sure which level this book would appeal to. The story and tone is for a younger audience but the topics of suicide, abortion and killing come up and may not be best suited for a younger audience. It’s an oddly graphic story that I couldn’t even finish.

*Note, I was provided an advanced reader’s copy of The Forest Queen from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review*
Robin Hood reimagined as a female? Yes, please!
The Forest Queen is the story of Lady Silviana of Loughsley, “Silvie”. Raised amongst the wealth and power of nobility, Silvie has been isolated from the struggles of the countrymen who live just outside the walls of her manor. But when her father grows ill, and the king names her brother, John as Sheriff, Silvie begins to see just how barbaric and cruel he’ll be with the power he’s been granted.
In the dark of the night Silvie flees her home with her best friend, Bird (Robert Falconer). Together they, along with a steadily increasing band of followers, build haven in the trees of the surrounding forest.
In true Robin Hood fashion Silvie and her new friends return to Loughsley in nighttime raids to “rob from the rich and give to the poor”.
The Forest Queen was an intriguing concept. I found it a bit hard to get drawn in to at the beginning and found the build up to be slow. This book might be setting the groundwork for further books, which I understand, but I’d prefer more swashbuckling and adventure with my Robin Hood stories (even if it’s just Book 1).
Some of the characters felt underdeveloped, I did come to really like Bird and Little Jane though.
One of the things I really appreciated in this book was the idea that a female character could be relied on to take the leadership role in both a rebellion and the establishment of a community. Just because of her own attributes Silvie was viewed as the authority figure in the band of evacuees from Loughsley.
I can’t say I liked The Forest Queen enough to rave about it, but it was entertaining, interesting and an easy read.

Not a bad book, but not for me. It had all the bones of something interesting but, for me, it never built upon its own promise. Everything was too simple - the writing, the characters, the story. I needed more depth than was offered to keep me engaged.