This was 3.5 stars for me!

I loved the sapphic romance in this story and absolutely loved the overall feels of this but there was also something off for me.

Maybe I had high expectations for Not for the Faint of Heart, but this book did not work for me. I think I was expecting more of a Robin Hood stories vibe and this was the complete opposite. I do think this book will find its audience.

Thank you NetGalley and to the publisher for this ARC!

Not for the Faint of Heart by Lex Croucher is a gripping and darkly comedic novel that dives into the chaotic and often brutal world of Victorian London. Croucher's sharp wit and vivid characterizations bring this historical setting to life, blending intrigue with a satirical edge. The narrative's exploration of power, morality, and survival makes for a compelling and thought-provoking read. If you enjoy historical fiction with a blend of humor and darkness, this book might be right up your alley

I truly enjoyed this book so much!!! I had me hooked from the very beginning and I couldn’t put it down! I highly recommend it!

Slow burn enemies to lovers! Sign me up! A fun and easy queer romcom. Not really plot heavy but very easy to follow.

Not for the Faint of Heart follows main protagonists Mariel, captain of the Merry Men and granddaughter of the legendary Robin Hood, and Clem, a healer. The story begins with Clem being kidnapped by Mariel and the rest of the Merry Men, kickstarting a tale of adventure, found family, and love. As a result, Mariel is forced to confront and doubt everything she once thought she knew about her blood family and the Merry Men, as well as her blossoming feelings for her kidnappee.

I thought there was some great LGBTQ+ representation in this. There is a sapphic romance at the heart of this story, and our immediate cast of characters also features a non-binary character, a trans character, and a gay character, among others. It’s probably the most amount of LGBTQ+ characters I’ve encountered in a single novel before, and I know that’s going to mean a lot to LGBTQ+ teen and young adult readers that come across this book. I appreciate Croucher including these characters in the story, especially in a time where backlash is so common when LGBTQ+ characters are featured in teen and YA novels. However, I believe LGBTQ+ characters’ inclusion in these genres are crucial, especially for LGBTQ+ youth.

I found the found family aspect of this book to be really fantastic. The chemistry between these characters, whether platonic or romantic, felt natural, and it really did feel like these characters had known each other for years and years. I also really enjoyed Croucher’a emphasis on the fact that family isn’t always our blood, it’s people we choose, too. I found that to be a beautiful message, and I believe it will impact and reach the right people in need of it.

However, I thought the pacing of this book was all over the place. The first half of the novel wasn’t really enticing, and I found it difficult to maintain my interest and keep reading. Even when things started to pick up, I couldn’t connect to these characters as much as I would’ve liked to. They came across as one-dimensional, with little to no character development across the arc of the story, apart from Mariel. Because of this, I found it difficult to care about what happened to these characters, even in moments when they were in copious amounts of danger. It made it difficult to keep reading, and for most of the novel, it felt like a drag to get through.

Although Not for the Faint of Heart didn’t speak to me the way I was hoping it would, I think this is a special and promising story that harbors potential to impact other readers in ways that it failed for me. It features escapades, romance, and the power in choosing a family of your own in a wonderful historical setting, one that I am sure many other readers will love.

I had high hopes as I love Gwen and art are not in love but I found this book much harder to get into and enjoy. The premise had promise but sadly didn’t live up to my expectations.

This was fun! A somewhat ridiculous adventure romp that also has some hard-hitting emotional moments and touches on darker topics like mental health (panic attacks) and overbearing parental expectations. I loved the queernormative take on Robin Hood.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc! Opinions are my own.

This was a fun, easy read! The plot was interesting, the characters were good (although I did care more about the side characters than Mariel and Clem), and there were some pretty funny moments. I love anything that involves found family, especially if said found family is queer, and that trope was done beautifully in this book. The pacing was good, and I read the whole book in under 24 hours, which is a good sign.
However, there were a few elements that didn’t work for me. The main one was that this was marketed as a rom com, and although there was some comedy, the romance came out of nowhere. If Clem and Mariel hadn’t been on the cover then I would have been completely blindsided by them kissing, because they each had exactly the same amount of chemistry with every other character in the book. I don’t understand what they saw in each other, and I wasn’t convinced by any of their “romantic” scenes. Honestly, this book would have held up way better if they just cut the romance out entirely. I also didn’t like Mariel (I sympathized with her and was rooting for her, but could not bring myself to actually like her), so that probably took away from my enjoyment as well.
The other major thing I didn’t like about this book was actually the same complaint I had about Croucher’s other YA novel: the ending was far too abrupt. They had a major battle, and then everything just kinda… ended. Loose ends were tied up very quickly, and then the book just stops. I actually went back and checked the page count on Goodreads to see if my ARC was missing any pages.
So all in all this book had its moments, but to me, it was just okay. I would still recommend people give it a try though, because I had a good time despite all my gripes.

Everyone in the wood knows of Robin Hood and his Merry Men who steal from the rich, give to the poor, and fight the sheriff of Nottingham and his men. But now, decades later, the Merry Men are under new management. Instead of loveable rogues they are vigilantes, so wrapped up in their mission of retaking the wood for the people they forgotten about, well, the people. That is until Clem, the young healer in training, is kidnapped by the Merry Men and held as an example for treating one of the sheriff's men. A body is a body to Clem, so when her kidnapper Mariel is injured she treats her and then becomes involved in the politics of the wood. The Merry Men may not be the people she believed them to be, but maybe they could be with a new leader… I loved Lex Croucher’s take on Robin Hood full of queer characters, hijinks and found family.

I really enjoyed this book. The characters were well developed and lovable. The pacing was perfect and left you wanting to read more. I can't wait to read more by this author!

This was a fun and chill read! I enjoyed "Gwen & Art Are Not in Love," but I liked this one better, so I would definitely recommend it for fans of Lex Croucher's other work. I know absolutely nothing about the Robin Hood universe, but this book filled me in on the context easily enough without being overly lore dump-y, which was nice. I also really liked the slow burn relationship between Mariel and Clem, which is hard to find in queer YA fiction which usually leans in the "love at first sight" direction. Their relationship felt a lot more natural, which was nice.

My only complaint would be the tonal shifts. The story is mostly fun and lighthearted, so it was kind of strange when sudden tragic events happen that totally throw off the tone. I felt like this was the sort of story where nothing really bad would happen, or anything bad that happened would be somehow magically reversed by the end, just because the first 3/4 of the book gave off that tone... but that was NOT the case!

I loved Lex's debut and this solidified her as a must read for me. The prose and voice are stunning and paint wonderful depictions of the characters and setting. Would recommend for those who enjoyed My Lady Jane!

This was my first Lex Croucher book. I found it to be kind of a slow start. The first half of the book was introducing a lot of characters and I found it to be distracting, The back half of the book did pick up but ultimately the ending felt rushed. Robin Hood is one of my tales and I was excited to read a YA Sapphic version. Muriel and Clem were cute but the plot and action were light. They had good banter but ultimately, it wasn't a book that I would pick up and read again.

Thank you to Lex Croucher, NetGalley and St Martin's Press for this eARC. All opinions expressed are my own. #netgalley #NotForTheFaintofHeart #StMartinsPress

I can’t think of anything else you would need to make a YA novel perfect. The author weaves in each characters differences like a tapestry. I loved reading of a world where being LGBTQ+ was normal. The characters and plot were real and realistic when dealing with flawed humans.

*Mild spoiler* As a recovering perfectionist & people pleaser it was particularly interesting to see the character growth in Clem and Mariel.

Thank you to NetGalley for sending me an advance digital copy of this book!

Another book for the short, but growing list of sapphic Robin Hood novels. It’s interesting that this is the first entry where our main queer characters are not Robin and Marian themselves, but original characters who interact and exist within the Robin Hood universe. The author describes this as a “historical fantasy romcom”, which is exactly how I’d describe Not For the Faint of Heart.

This book follows Mariel (Robin Hood’s granddaughter) and a healer named Clem who gets swept along in an adventure with the current iteration of the Merry Men. Robin is retired and gone from Sherwood, and leadership has fallen to his son-in-law who runs the outlaws more like a militia, focused on violently protecting their territory rather than focusing their illegal deeds on helping the local community. In this confusing era of Sherwood Forest outlaws, Mariel, Clem, and their small company of queer buddies slowly shift the mission and priorities back to its roots.

For any reader who wants to go on an adventure with queer found family through Sherwood Forest, cracking (anachronistic) jokes and counting squirrels, this is the book to read! For sure! I had a great reading experience most of the time, despite some personal issues that I had with it. Those anachronistic jokes were fun and I had several good laughs. So many people will love and adore this book.

Coming into any Robin Hood book, I come fully equipped and over-informed, along with my deeply personal preconceived ideas. With books like Not For the Faint of Heart, I knew that it was important to set as many of those aside as I could and enjoy it for what it is intended to be. In this case, a queer adventure romcom.

And I did enjoy it! But I have some qualms, too. It won’t affect the reading experience for the majority of people, but I found it disappointing that Marian was given such short shrift, with only a few one-off lines to let readers know that she existed. For a character who has an origin story of cross-dressing, running to the forest, and getting into sword fights, she seems well-suited to be more involved than she was in a sapphic Robin Hood novel.

<spoiler>In the distant past of this book, Robin and Marian amicably end their relationship so that Robin and Will Scarlet can get married, with Marian’s complete encouragement and support. With my aforementioned deeply personal preconceived ideas, I feel kind of weird about Robin and Marian being with anyone other than each other. But okay! That’s fine. Unfortunately, rather than allow Marian to stick around as a capable outlaw and a good friend, she dies without explanation and has little to no impact on the Merry Men or her granddaughter. Sigh.</spoiler>

In the end, none of that matters to the average reader. I mean, I learned this information in a grand total of four brief lines across the whole book, so it could be very easy for the average reader to skip right over this. It’s just that I have a shelf of Marian books and a Marian spreadsheet, so I care more than most about this.

Although I was cruelly deprived of seeing Marian as a grandma, Robin as a grandpa was the sweetest thing, and I have no complaints. My favorite thing about this book is undeniably grandpa Robin, who does have an impact on his granddaughter and is a kind and supportive figure in her young life, and someone that she clearly looks up to and respects. I loved that.

Some fun easter eggs I enjoyed:
- The book opens with Clem making a Robin Hood hat for a fox
- They use a horn (one time) as the predetermined signal for help, and it’s actually hilarious. “We have purchased a particularly horrible horn. You’ll know it when you hear it.”

I identify as a lesbian, and I’m writing this in my Robin Hood Corner™, so I am the target audience for this book in many ways. I enjoyed reading this! I read a good 60% of it in one sitting. It’s hard to say no to a bunch of queer characters adventuring through Sherwood Forest making Robin Hood puns and jokes. But even though I enjoyed reading this, it made me consider what I’m really looking for when I read lesbian and sapphic Robin Hood books.

Here’s what I landed on: I don’t need to feel personally represented by characters on-page in a Robin Hood story because my personal identity is already so wrapped up in Robin Hood. I’m already there, whether or not my specific sexual and romantic identity is included. So while I don’t think I’m looking for anything specific, it's delightful to know that sapphics and other queer folks get to read books like this where they can find a niche for themselves in the wide world of Robin Hood stories. The story of Robin Hood is for everyone.

Unfortunately, this book just didn't hit the mark for me. The pacing was incredibly slow even during high stake moments, the two main characters hardly interacted with each other for the first half of the book (odd considering its a romance), I found the side characters easy to confuse, and the plot overall wasn't compelling. The premise is very interesting, but the execution was weak. I think there is so much that could have been expanded upon to make it more enjoyable. While I'm sure others will love this book, this one just wasn't for me.

The plot and characters are enjoyable. If you are not a fan of slower books, pass on this one. The pacing was not for me but it's a good book!

I had really high expectations because I was so obsessed with Gwen and Art Are Not In Love, but this just didn't hit the mark for me. I found that it tended to drag quite a bit (despite the high stakes) & there wasn't enough banter between Clem and Mariel. However, I really enjoyed the character of Clem and her interactions with the rest of the crew.

I am always up for a good YA book & Not For the Faint of Heart by Lex Croucher was a stellar YA read. This book was very entertaining, with sharp & witty writing. I would definitely re
Thank you NetGalley & St. Martin’s Press|Wednesday Books for an ARC copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.