I really enjoyed this "retelling" of Robin Hood as a morally grey, probably more honest, medieval man. It felt researched enough but not to tell the story as an essay. I liked Jane and how she was torn between the myth and the man of Robin Hood and had to come to her own realization that he wasn't who the songs and stories made him out to be.
The author's writing style and story telling felt similar to another author's that I love so I will be looking forward to more work from Amy Kaufman. "The Traitor of Sherwood Forest" will be a book I recommend to others looking for a more honest to life story of Robin Hood.

I received an e-ARC copy of this book from the publishers on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Traitor of Sherwood Forest is such a thought provoking story, from a woman’s point of view. I really have not spent a day where my mind has not wandered back into it.
Jane’s moral compass being at odds with what is true and fair justice, amongst men who were never held accountable, not by the law of the kingdom nor the church.
Kaufman did the most accurate portrayal in my opinion of Robin Hood and his men, no matter how true and righteous of your cause no one is immune to corruption of any kind.
Reading the fairytale-esque people who I only knew of through cinema, and knowing that the majority of Kaufman’s book is historically accurate shattered my naive thoughts on what I vaguely knew.

I enjoyed the hell out of this, if you're a fan of shows like Outlander give this a try in April when it's released.

I'd like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this.

I made it 25% into the book before realizing I don't think this book is for me. I think I expected something... a bit more with character?

Our female character follows her date into the woods, where she finds Robin and his gang of merry men. We know off the bat that Robin is speech savvy, good looking, and tends to get what he wants. We also know based on what the female lead's date says that Robin doesn't like to be angered and don't push him. Robin gives our female lead a test to see if she ends up in the gang.

Which takes us to the moment in which Robin is in disguise, pretends to sell pots in the street. The female lead then is roped in with him, they are escorted back to the estate of one of the villains' estate. There Robin gets into an archery contest.

I will say the author has a knack of understanding the time peri0d.

The thing that bothered me was... I did not like the female, and I didn't care for how Robin was manipulating her. I felt by the way the author wrote the character the female came across easily swayed, immature. Now, it could be that that's the point of the story, that we're watching this version of Robin Hood gaslight our female lead into a romance. But, if I was to strip away that whole aspect from the female lead, she had no redeemable qualities. There was no character to her character. When you write a character, you write them with hopes, feelings, desires, fears. The girl we got existed only as a form of 'easily swayed female'. That's it, there is nothing much about her.

I give books 25% - 50% to hook me or let me understand where the author is going with this, but I felt that this is a book that requires some good character development, and looking at the authors previous works... I don't think she is quite up to par. Most of her books are research books about the middle ages - which is the strong bits of the book.

All in all, I thought differently going into this.

Thank you to the publishers for the advanced copy!

I had no idea the historical context of the character Robin Hood and it was interesting seeing him portrayed as so morally gray. I think the historical note at the back of the book should basically be required reading for this because it added a lot of context and clarity for some of the plot and character choices.

Our main character, Jane, is a peasant girl who gets roped into helping notorious rogue Robin Hood. He is charming and charismatic and alluring to Jane in almost an unexplainable way. As the story progresses, Jane sees him less and less as a hero, and more and more as the deeply flawed and hurt outlaw that he is. Jane ends up acting as a double agent that will leave all readers guessing as to who she is actually fighting for.

The first half of this book was fairly slow and a tad boring if I'm honest, but once I started second-guessing Jane's motives and trying to figure out who she was playing for I got re-invested. I feel like I still don't really know Jane's character after all of this, and I would have loved a little more internal conflict from her as opposed to just her actions being laid out as they happened. I also found the resolution of the story incredibly vague and lacking. I wanted more at the end from Little John because I'd grown to like his stances as a character and I feel like he got left in the lurch a little.

Overall I found the characters all to be flawed and I had no idea who I liked or didn't, even at the end, and I think that was partially the point. For fans of historical fiction that is highly researched and intentional, this will be a great read upon its April release.

I appreciate the opportunity to read this but unfortunately this is a DNF for me.

I think my biggest struggle getting into the story is that I didn't really like any of the characters. Jane felt hot and cold and they all kind of lacked depth to me.

This was a strong re-imagining of Robin Hood, it had that element that I was looking for and thought it was a great standalone from the source material. Amy S. Kaufman wrote this perfectly and was glad I got to read this. I was invested in what was going on in this world and how everything flowed together to tell the story and enjoyed the overall package.

Thank you so much for an early copy. This book was so intriguing! In the eyes of a spies that helps the infamous Robin Hood. Lots of twist and turns that keeps you wanting more.