A dark take on the tale of Robin Hood.

Told from the point of view of Jane, a girl who is brought into Robin’s web to spy for him at the King’s Houses. She quickly falls under Robin’s spell, despite warnings that he is not who he seems. With tricks up his sleeve, Robin taunts the people of King’s Houses, particularly the clergy and the Shire Reeve. As Robin’s tricks get darker and more dangerous, Jane has to decide on which side she belongs.

The characters are honestly not particularly likable, which I am sure is the point, in this novel that completely upends the myth of Robin Hood and his merry men.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a digital ARC of this title!

I thought this was very good and I will have to add this to the shop shelves. Thank you for the chance for us to review.

I am a sucker for anything Robin Hood! Fun. Great characterizations and interesting descriptions of food, clothing, and locations. Mud flies etc. Thank you to NetGalley for this advanced readers copy.

4.5

The story started slow but eventually picked up with events happening rapidly. Read the author’s historical note at the end–this story is about the original ballads, not the happy go lucky atmosphere and disney-ification of the story (the smoothing over of the rough edges of the Robin Hood tale started well before Disney).

This story leans into the violence, the self-serving actions, and the desire for glory when Robin’s actions are viewed up close.

The standout is the prioress rather than the young and easily impressed Jane Crowe who is the narrative focus. Jane experiences growth throughout the novel, but she doesn’t have the commanding personality of the prioress, who is a key supporting character. Aside from Jane, readers will recognize many of the characters: the sheriff, Guy de Gisborne, Robin’s fellow outlaws. Others may not be as familiar, but were present in the ballads, like the prioress.

A different take on the well known tale of Robin Hood from the third person perspective of one of his female group members. I loved the historical context and diffetent portrayal of a character we all belive we know.

This was just not for me. While I enjoyed the writing style. the plot was not as compelling as I wanted.

dnf @ 28%

idk how you make a robin hood retelling boring, but this book certainly manages it.

i was intrigued by the premise of a darker, morally gray robin hood, but the execution fell short. this reads like YA, and not in a fun way. jane is a generic YA protagonist and i wasn’t interested in the obvious build up to a love triangle between jane, her preexisting love interest, and robin.

I was really thrilled by this premise because a reimagining of Robin Hood lore sounded fascinating! Unfortunately, the book didn't live up to the premise for me. it was fine, but not really anything I would recommend to anyone or go out of my way to read again.

Thank you Penguin Books and Netgalley for the ARC!

I really enjoyed this interpretation of Robin Hood, not as a good man trying to right the wrongs of the kingdom, but a complex man who thinks he is above the law and what he wants should be what happens. I appreciate that the FMC is shown as being smart but also naive, slowly learning that reality of the situation they are in. This book deals with complex topics such as toxic masculinity, when does being a vigilante stop being for good and start being selfish, and the fact that those in power need to care about those who aren't.

If you like Robin Hood and fairytale retellings, I recommend picking this one up! It is such a fresh take, and I had a great time reading it.

The idea here really hooked me—a darker, more morally gray Robin Hood retelling with a female lead caught between loyalty and betrayal. The medieval setting feels grounded and authentic, and I liked how Robin is shown as both magnetic and dangerous.

That said, the pacing dragged in spots, and Jane’s choices started to feel repetitive. I found myself getting frustrated with her at times, and the ending felt a bit abrupt after all the buildup. There’s also some modern-sounding dialogue that pulled me out of the historical vibe.

Overall, it’s an interesting take on the legend with some great atmosphere, but uneven pacing and a not-always-likable main character kept me from fully loving it. If you like your Robin Hood with grit and moral complexity, it’s still worth a look.

In this brilliant new historical fiction novel, readers follow Jane Crowe, an ordinary peasant girl who has no idea that she will one day work for Robin Hood, the infamous Lord of the Greenwood after she is forced out of her home. Acting as his eyes in the King’s Houses, Jane uses her invisibility to her advantage and offers insight into the lives of the nobles and the new Sheriff of Nottingham. However, the tricks and acts of the Merry Men are becoming more dangerous and more violent, Jane must reconcile the myth versus the reality and make difficult choices when one of Robin’s schemes implicates Jane in a brutal murder. Packed with details and fantastic characters, Amy Kaufman brings the questions of morality and ethics in the stories of Robin Hood to life in fantastic detail, and the characters are well-written and complex in some fascinating ways that add a lot of drama and tension to the book. The historical setting and details really highlight the motivations of Robin Hood and Jane in particular, and the details really flesh out the characters’ complications and the larger conflict. Unique, entertaining, and fascinating, readers will love this incredible reimagining of the legends of Robin Hood.

I took this one camping, hoping for a fun, light reading. I appreciate that the author gave a note at the end about trying to keep Robinhood true to the lore and history. However, our main character is Jane - and I struggled with her POV. I found the pacing inconsistent, seeming to rush through parts I'd wish got more time but slowing down as Jane pines for even the site of Robinhood and how much she craves him. I wish I'd loved it but this one just wasn't for me.

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

Jane Crowe is a peasant girl who is taking care of her younger brothers.
Her live is fully changing when she is meeting the Lord of the Greenwood, Robin Hood. He is testing her and offers her a totally new live. He places her at the King´s Houses where she shall work in the kitchen and spy for him.
She is captivated by his presence, his good cause fighting for the poor and is passing on all info she gains and is more and more part of his men and the tricks he is doing. Bit by bit it is becoming more and more dangerous when the Sheriff of Nottingham is set to hunt down Robin Hood.
The relationship between Jane and Robin is also changing and the question is, is she a prize to be won, is it a game or has he really feelings for her?


This is a re telling of the know story about Robin Hood with a totally different twist.
Here Robin Hood seems at the beginning like the character we are used to. Soon this changed for me and I was wondering if he is really a good person or if he is following only his own cause and the stories about him are only stories. So he and his men here are fighting for their own cause, playing their own games which are not really taking from the rich for the poor. The way he is described here I did not like at all Robin and for me he was manipulative and everybody around him was used they way he liked it.
At the beginning I liked Jane a lot. She is an ordinary girl taking care of her younger brothers, keeps the house running after her father left her family and her mother is trying to get a better life for herself. Her relationship to Bram was well written and I liked how they have been together. That she is fascinated from Robin I could understand at the beginning of this story. Then I didn´t really get how he could play her like all the others around him. I thought she sees more, is good in reading between the lines hence from my point of view she should have seen and understood what games Robin is playing way earlier. In parts she felt really powerful for that time, so sure of herself but why she over and over again is not willing to see how Robin really is, that it takes her so long to accept it I could not understand.

The love triangle between Jane, Bram and Robin couldn´t convince me at all. Honestly I liked how Jane and Bram interacted, could understand their feelings for each other but what was going on between Jane and Robin I didn´t understand at all.

So it is an interesting new view on legend in which Robin Hood is not the good guy but all in all the story couldn´t convince me.
Some parts of the story were dragging for me and as I did not really like any of the main characters it was a bit hard for me to really get into the story.

I have never really understood the appeal of the Robin Hood legends. Yes, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor is a nice way to level the financial divide but, it's still stealing, which is a sin as well as a crime.

The moral and ethical question of Robin Hood's right to be the arbiter of the redistribution of wealth, and dispenser of justice sits at the center of The Traitor of Sherwood Forest. Amy S. Kaufman has researched medieval texts on the legends of Robin Hood to give source material to her plot, which at first seems like an interesting retelling. Yet, things turn sour soon as main female character Jane, who has sexual yearnings for Robin, begins to experience his rational for his and his band of "heros'" actions.

The reader sees that Robin and his men are: anti rich, anti law, anti king, anti government, anti church, especially Catholicism, which is protrayed malevolently. They are anti everything, including each other at times, which brings back the ethical and moral considerations of the entire story. Robin seems more like an absolute anarchist than a champion for the common working man. There are dark and disturbing elements to the plot that are off-putting and make me disinclined to recommend this book.

I thank the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this title.

Thank you to NetGalley, Amy S. Kaufman, and Penguin Books for providing this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Traitor of Sherwood Forest is a Robin Hood retelling that dives deeper into the origins of the ballads instead of relying on the squeaky clean Victorian imaginings of the tale. That is to say, this is very different from the Disney version of Robin Hood. As someone who didn't know too much about the legend of Robin Hood, this book felt fresh and extremely well researched. The author was capable of bringing to life Medieval England in a way that felt both familiar and new.

As we focus on Jane Crowe, a peasant woman, the author was capable of exploring the existence of those who history ignores. I loved how conflicted Jane always felt in regards to both her needs vs. duties, as well as Robin Hood himself. We accompany Jane as she begins to spy for Robin Hood, believing that all he does is for the common good, and is forced to question every single one of her and his actions as suffering is brought to people she believes are not vile enough to warrant. Jane's arc is one that could be told in any era, as she begins to recongnize her own worth after years of feeling as valuable as a rotten onion. She finds her own voice and agency, and that is always an empowering arc to read about!

As for the plot itself, it felt a little repetitive and lacking in tension. It was hard for me to understand why that was because it is an action packed narrative, but ultimately each confrontration was lacking in the sense of urgency it required to raise the stakes for me. The romantic plotline with a love triangle also felt weak. It was clear that Jane and Bran had to chemistry but I also didn't feel it with Robin, so I was not really invested in this part of the storyline, despite feeling happy with the end result!

Overall, I would recommend this book to historical fiction lovers who want a different perspective on Robin Hood but also on how the stories we tell ourselves are not always the truth.

It was okay. I was expecting something a little different.
Still a nice read but it didn’t floor me

This was such an interesting and different story. It took the Robin Hood that we all know from the movies and turned him upside down. This book blurs the lines between good and evil characters and causes the reader to reevaluate what they thought they knew and believed. I liked that we were finding out the truth alongside the female main character, even though at times she made some very poor decisions and put herself in harm’s way for seemingly no reason other than a crush. The pacing of this book was a bit off with the book throwing us immediately into Robin Hood’s band of outlaws and then slowing to a near halt with little happening until the last 10-20% where everything comes to a head.

Did I click “Read Now” the second I saw this cover? Possibly… especially with SCARLET by A.C. Gaughen haunting me. Aspects of that Robin Hood retelling still live rent free in my brain, and I’ve been chasing that feeling ever since. Unfortunately, THE TRAITOR OF SHERWOOD FOREST just didn’t live up to my hopes for it (as unfair as that may be).

This historical fiction novel was clearly well researched, and I appreciated that Robin is a very complicated character in it. He wasn’t the heroic ideal, and I was glad that we got to see him through the eyes of a woman spying for him. I appreciated what this book was trying to do, but I struggled with the fact that it was just so bland. The thing I loved about Gaughen’s series was that I genuinely felt the thrill and the danger. I didn’t feel that way reading this one and wasn’t invested enough in any of the characters to care when things did go awry.

I appreciated the work that went into this novel and am glad I got to give it a try. I ended up listening to most of it on audio and did love the narrator, Grace Gray. She was the highlight of the reading experience for me.

Thank you so much, PENGUIN GROUP Viking Penguin | Penguin Books, for providing me this ARC.

"An immersive, sultry, heart-pounding historical reimagining of the Robin Hood ballads, told through the piercing eyes of one of his spies."

This was an interesting take on the classic Robin Hood. I enjoyed the allure of the tale, although I must admit, it didn't captivate me as much as I had hoped. While I found the characters and plot engaging, there were moments where the pacing felt uneven. A decent read nonetheless.

As always, all thoughts are my own. 🖤✨

Pub Date Apr 29 2025

I very much enjoyed seeing Robin Hood written as though seen through contemporary eyes. That Kaufman is a medievalist is clear in the historical details and language she uses, and it makes thes tory all the more real. It is, of course, a little hard to see one of my favorite folk characters the way Kaufman writes him, but mostly because she makes his character so easy to believe in. When it comes out in paperback, I expect I'll be adding this book to my collection.