'The queen of the forest' is a retelling of Robin Hood' in which our female lead assumes the role of Robin. This book is perfect for fans of fantasy with a twist and is full of characters i loved, and some i loved to hate.

This book is incredible. I don't know if the author herself has some sort of magical writing powers because WOW is it written BEYOND well. This is an author who put a whole lot of love into her writing, and it shows.
This book just works. It truly does. The setting and the plot just weaves itself together so well. You can feel as if you are connected to the characters.
All in all - definitely worth the read! I will be picking up a copy for my bookshelf when it becomes available!

The Forest Queen is, quite directly, a gender swapped retelling of the traditional Robin Hood tale. Silvie is our protagonist, a young woman born of nobility, although she doesn't quite fit in with the traditional lords and ladies of the court. After her jerky (and quite frankly, incredibly creepy) brother, John, uses her a pawn in one of his schemes, she decides that enough is enough. Silvie and her closest childhood friend, Bird, run away into the woods, but not before picking up a few new friends along the way. Throughout the remainder of the story, we see a community develop: this 'rebel' community eventually coming to a head with John and his power hungry ways.

First of all, it took me a while after reading this book to fully process the contents and how to review them. I took issue with several things, but my main concern is that I didn't feel that the subject matter always matched the tone and writing level of the book. By that I mean - this book covers some VERY heavy topics, including suicide, rape, talk of abortion, incest, etc. and I was very surprised to see those topics covered with a more middle grade tone. Even in a young adult novel, these topics can be difficult to fully do justice and I'm not sure that I was comfortable with the handling of these subjects within this novel. I was definitely not crazy about the multiple mentions and focus of John's incestuous feelings toward his little sister, the novel's main character - it felt like a very heavy topic to introduce and did nothing for the plot except really creep me out to find something like that in a middle grade style novel.

Moving on from those concerns, the overall plot of 'The Forest Queen' moves along at a nice pace, with emotional moments slowing down the pace for full impact and high points of drama having their time to shine as well. Overall, I was pleased with the development of the story and thought that was the ending was fairly satisfying. Many of the side characters were very interesting on their own merits, so I wouldn't mind seeing a sequel come from this novel in the future.

I am a huge fan of retellings! This is an enjoyable and simple book with a gender swap element. I was not familiar with the author and did not know this book is a prequel.

I love re-telling, particularly fairy tales. The Forest Queen is a gender swapped re-telling of Robin Hood.
I didn't realise until after I had finished this book that it is actually a prequel of sorts to an existing series. Though I didn't have any prior knowledge of Mechanica I didn't feel lost and it actually made to want to check out Mechanica.

A female Robin Hood retelling with plenty of potential. I can see many of my students appreciating this twist on a classic tale, as I found it to be a pretty quick and easy read. While the story does take on a couple of heavier topics, it does not take away from the appeal of the story and adds a depth to the tale we are more accustomed to hearing.

A fun, creative re-imagining of the Robin Hood tales. Sylvie starts out very different from what you'd imagine Robin Hood to be like, constrained by her controlling brother and the need to marry for dynastic power. But escaping to the forest sets her free and despite her initial privilege, she comes to understand how to help the local poor and become a symbol of resisting oppression. There's less of the thievery and shenanigans usually present in Robin Hood tales. Instead, the journey here is one more of reaching self-reliance and freedom by escaping oppressive rule, which is no less important or powerful.

The Forest Queen is a retelling of Robin Hood in which Lady Silviana of Loughsley assumes the role of Robin Hood. Together with her friend Bird and others, she starts to rebel against her own brother John.
John, who was recently made sheriff by the king is very harsh and cruel to his citizens. He raises the taxes they have to pay both to him, and to the king. If they do not pay or do not pay on time, the citizens will find out exactly how cruel John can be the hard way. Lady Silviana, in the book simply called Silvie, has her personal reasons for hating her brother, as he has been bullying her all her life. As the opportunity presents itself, Silvie, her friend Bird and a villager named Little Jane run away to live in the nearby Woodshire forest where they start a community.

To me, this plot sounded extremely promising. I love Robin Hood, and the idea of a retelling with switched gender roles is just incredibly cool. The story itself was fun to read, and I actually did enjoy reading it. However, there were a lot of aspects in this book that discouraged me from really appreciating it.
First of all, there are so many characters, but none of them are fully developed. There are four main characters (Silvie, Bird, Little Jane, and John) but with neither of them, I feel that I really got to know the character. It was hard to guess what their motivations were for some of their actions, and most aspects of their backgrounds were simply nonexistent or very poorly introduced.

With some of the characters, I was completely unsure why they were introduced at all? For example the characters of Silvie’s father and Alana Dale where given some attention, but are far from realizing their potential. Silvie’s father was introduced and some very kind things were said about him, but then they introduced a couple very shocking facts and just left it at that?!?! He just made a couple of random appearances throughout the book, and simply was not addressed in the conclusion of this book at all. The character of Alana Dale had loads of potential, but the execution of her character felt so compressed that it seems like she became just a mandatory character that was required for a Robin Hood retelling.

Secondly, this book addressed some important matters. Obviously, it is about justice, kindness and compassion, but it also touches upon themes of birth control and abortion. Normally this would be something I am extremely grateful for to read about in Young Adult literature, but again it was so poorly executed here. There was one scene where it was briefly touched upon, and just one other moment where it was referred back upon. This made that the themes fell really out of place in this book and, according to my opinion, did not align with time and place in this book.

Finally, the book has only 173 pages, which is just too short to create a fully developed world with so many characters in it. The story itself is fun, but it is very rudimentary in its implementation. It would have been so much stronger with more character and worldbuilding.
All taken together I would rate this book 2,5/5 stars. I received a digital review copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are entirely my own. My review is susceptible to changes in the final copy of this work.

I was super excited to read a genderbent re-telling of Robin Hood! My only complaint was that it was too short! Would definitely love to read more gender bent retellings of classic tales.

ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

3.5 stars rounded up

Gender bent Robin Hood? I was so in and I wasn’t disappointed.

 

First of all if you’re looking for something with great historical context this probably isn’t for you. Likewise if you want magic and dragons. It’s a fantasy in that it’s a reimagining of several original folktales around the mythic Robin Hood. (I have to admit that my head cannon on Robin Hood always sets it in 12th Century England and having researched that period certain things made my teeth hurt, or would have done if I hadn’t accepted this book on its own terms.) I would also suggest that if you go in looking for sweeping tales of derring do with lots of action you may be disappointed, because that’s really not what this is about.

 

 

So what do you get? Well, every major character from the Robin Hood tales and ballads is female in this book, which is an absolute treat. It’s a story about claiming your own freedom, and with that comes responsibility for your actions and a refusal of ignorance. The Forest Queen is about building a community having rejected an unfair system riddled with inequality and reached instead for a radical overhaul of the status quo. Something we sorely need with Britain’s current PM and America’s current President! It explores issues of class and poverty, justice and inequality. The cast is suitably diverse and the characters are engaging and often loveable. What Cornwall does well is put women in the driving seat without making them pseudo-men or subscribing to stereotypical gender norms. And on top of that it’s just an utterly charming book, written with delicacy and strength.

 

My one big bugbear is that it’s way too short for me. That’s very much a personal opinion because a book only needs to be long enough to tell the story, which it does. But I could have gobbled it up if it was three times as long, slow burner or not. My other very minor bugbear was that as much as I love Bird and really ship him and Sylvie, he was quite condescending and on occasion, mansplain-y – but perhaps that was the point, because Slyvie had a lot of growing up and cluing up to do.

 

I really, really enjoyed this. Highly recommend for lovers of quiet fantasy starring found-family.

I've always been fond of the story of Robin Hood, and this is a lovely version with most of the roles gender flipped or, in some cases, turned into birds. It's quite a short book, so we don't really get to know anyone beyond Silvie, our Robin, Little Jane, and sort of Bird, who I assumed was Marion but according to the author's note isn't, actually.

It's a nice novel and I enjoyed reading it. I'd enjoy reading more, too - there's plenty more ballads and stories, after all!

Receiving an ARC did not affect my review in any way.

A fresh new take on the Robin Hood legend that includes gender swapping?!?! YES PLEASE!!
When Sylvie's older brother takes over her family estate, due to her father's health declining very rapidly, Sylvie decides she can't stay there any longer; she refuses to live under the cruel, scary brother that makes the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Sylvie leaves her home, and all the comfort that comes with it, with her best friend (and crush, but don't say that out loud, Bird to live it the forest they played in when they were young.
Together Bird and Sylvie will start to steal to help the people that start to join their community and pretty soon they will learn what it is like to lead a rebellion.

I wanted to love this book so much. A female retelling of Robin Hood? Obviously sign me up. Sadly, I was left pretty underwhelmed by The Forest Queen, which I found rushed, vague, overly simplistic, and admittedly a bit lackluster. I didn't hate this book, by any means - there were many parts of it I liked. There were some great girl power moments in here and a few scattered commentaries on women's self-determination, strength, yada yada. However, it often felt out of place in the larger context of the book and like it was just thrown in because it sounded good/fit in with the author's intended ethos.

The plot dragged a bit, with things not really kicking off until the last 30-40 pages or so, which is fine because scene setting is important. However, I feel like we spent so much time on stuff that didn't matter, like building a treehouse and how to live in the wild in general. I'd have preferred more background on Sylvie's upbringing in Loughsley and more importantly, what happened to John to make him so unequivocally evil, as he was portrayed in this book. It's hard to become invested emotionally in a story when there's no real depth to the characters and there really wasn't here. Everyone was half-sketched, even Sylvie herself. We just know that her brother was a creep who wanted to marry her off and she'd had enough. Because of this, I just felt kinda "meh" about the whole thing. I appreciate what the author was TRYING to do, but this is perhaps an example of a book that actually should have been multi-volume, so we had some more time for the ever-important world building that would've lended so much more to the story she was trying to tell. A quick, light read, but ultimately just a little disappointing.

This was a well crafted genderbent retelling that unfortunately feels very timely.

This is a retelling of Robin Hood with most of the gender roles reversed. The characters aren’t all that fleshed out, but it’s still entertaining to read this take on a rousing revolutionary story from a female perspective. In fact, Silvie, the soon-to-be “Queen of the Forest” takes on her role as “Robin Hood” after discovering another female, “Little Jane,” who is despondent over having been in a #MeToo situation. Rape, in most previous eras and even today in many cultures, is regarded as evidence that the female is wanton, and she is “dishonored” and scorned. Silvie has [thus far] escaped the worst elements of that fate, but she doesn’t feel totally safe in her home situation. But as Silvie muses, “Surely there’s more honor in - in going on.” Little Jane can’t go home, and so Silvie opts to join her in exile in Woodshire Forest.

They don’t go alone; they are joined by Robert Falconer, known as Bird, who is trustworthy and totally devoted to Silvie, as well as being devoted to the welfare of their city. After the threesome spring a midwife (“Mae Tuck”) out of the jail in order to help with Little Jane’s impending childbirth, others soon join their ranks in the forest. In order to feed and care for everyone, they start robbing from the coffers of the Sheriff and even of the King, and redistributing the money to their band as well as the poor of the town.

Most of the characters from the original Robin Hood’s Merry Men make an appearance. There are almost no women in the classic Robin Hood stories, so many of them are transformed here to women. For example, Alan-a-Dale is now Alana Dale. There is even a switch of species, as with Much and Scarlett.

Discussion: There isn’t a lot of world-building, but there really doesn’t need to be. The underlying plot of rich, oppressive, and abusive overlords doesn’t need much in the way of embellishment. Except for Silvie and Little Jane, the characters aren’t well developed either, but most readers will know the original stories of Robin Hood. The delight comes from the fundamental changes in form the author makes, rather than from any deepening or rounding out of different actors in the story.

Evaluation: This gender-switched Robin Hood makes for a fun and satisfying read.

The Forest Queen is a book of rebelling for the right reasons. Its a book that gives hope to the little guys. Its a book that gives the feeling that things will always get better. Its a book that shows all different forms of love.

If you cant tell already from my intro I really enjoyed this book and all it had to offer my ever starving brain. The main character is a lady of a noble house and has the benefits of all that comes with it. Until one day she finds herself second guessing all of her reasons for staying where she is and the adventure begins.

I learned a few things in reading The Forest Queen.
Love in all its forms is not easy, it's rough and it's raw.
Always have hope, even in the unknown, even when you think there is nothing left to hope for. You never know where it will get you if you just keep hold of that sliver of hope.
And most of all I learnt I need to know what other books have been written by the wonderful Betsy Cornwall.

Happy Reading booknerds =]

I tried to read this book but the copy was not able to be downloaded in pdf or sent to my kindle.

Sorry!

Absolutely loved the evolution of the main character.

Robin Hood except everyone is a girl.

As a confirmed compulsive reader of every possible Robin Hood retelling, I SURE WAS EXCITED for this one! It's okay, but overall it seemed really incredibly short. There was barely any time for anything to happen, and everything that did happen was super straightforward.

Some people aren't girls: the bad guy, and the main love interest.

These two guys, the main character Sylvie, and Little Jane are really the only 4 characters that you actually get to know. Which kind of kicks the ratio of "Robin Hood except everyone is a girl" back down to "Robin Hood except half the people are girls." Disappointing.

We just needed more time, and more complexity, so that we could have spent more than two seconds with Alan-of-Dale and The Saracen and Mae Tuck and literally everyone else who wasn't these 4 characters. The first half of the book that almost solely focused on Sylvie, Bird, and Jane was great -- as soon as they began adding more people in the second half, though, it felt increasingly like the author had just started checking off required "Robin Hood" boxes so quickly they became meaningless.

We didn't get to see them growing together as a band. We saw them pull off one unrealistically simple heist. The fantasy Not-England country the story takes place in is apparently the size of a shoebox, and I'm confused by the lack of worldbuilding in general. We got only TWO isolated instances of Sylvie even shooting a bow, both of which took places before they had been outlawed. There just was not enough here, and what was here seemed far too simplistic.