This is a historical reimagining of Robin Hood, told through the eyes of one of his spies. Jane loses her home and comes to work for Robin to survive. He hires Jane as a spy because she is unassuming and can easily fit in. Jane ends up “falling” for Robin… but she kind of realizes maybe he’s not all he’s cracked up to be. He is violent and dangerous and Jane is losing trust in him. Some things happen, don’t want to spoil anything, but Jane has some choices to make. I really enjoyed this book! I kind of feel like Jane wasn’t the most exciting character but I’m kind of ok with that because this story is really about Robin through her eyes.

I received this book as an eArc from NetGalley and really enjoyed it! I grew up a Disney kid watching all the classics and as soon as I saw a Robin Hood retelling, I knew I had to read it.

The book focuses on Jane, the FMC, a character that is poor, invisible, lost in her life's purpose, and looking for more. The opportunity to meet the illustrious rumored-about Robin Hood is presented to her and she is instantly enamored with him. She is set up to become his spy in the King's House and so our story unfolds.

I loved the imagery of this book and the details brought to life in each character. They were all very memorable and I could instantly picture them when they were brought up. I loved the re-telling of a classic story, a more realistic view of the fabled Robin Hood.

The only reason this book did not receive a perfect 5 star from me, is towards the middle end the pace of the story felt like it slowed down a little bit and I wasn't itching to pick it up every spare minute I had. I also didn't understand why she was set up in the King's House and then the king was never there. She only ever interacted with lower level players like the Reeve of Knottingham, a bounty hunter, and the female cousin of the king. I feel like this book could have greatly benefited from some interactions with him, it might have made it feep more dangerous, I don't know. That's just my two cents.

I also think this would be a good book for an older teen, definitely YA vibes going on.

I thoroughly enjoyed this retelling of Robin Hood. Told from the view of Jane, a new hired spy, we come into a whole new world of Robin. Everyone has heard the tales of Robin and his men, but it's with Jane that we find there's more to them than what the stories tell.

Getting caught amongst more games than she can handle, Jane finds in the end she needs to choose for herself the life she wants. But is the life she wants worth it, and will she get it?

Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for the ARC.

I love the story of Robin Hood, so give me a whole novel with a morally gray hero and I’m hooked. While I’m giving this four stars, I think most readers who aren’t as infatuated with our green-caped vigilante might be more critical than I am.

The characters in this novel were wonderfully complex, with backstories that are revealed layer by layer.

Ibota was my favorite character. Crotchety. Putting men in their place with her sharp and witty words. Intelligent. Using society’s preconceived notions about women to her own advantage.

A character I was surprised to develop a heart for was the Shire Reeve (and his wife!). He’s such a dislikable character at the beginning but the author did a wonderful job with his story.

Robin himself was all of the good from his lore but also all of the bad. Morally gray indeed, you’re not quite sure how to feel about him until the very end.

Now to some of my gripes. Our heroine, Jane, was very frustrating. She’s introduced as industrious, capable, and required to take care of herself because of her circumstances. Despite all of that, she’s kind of an idiot. She repeatedly makes the same mistakes, believes the same lies, and ignores the advice of every person she’s close to. It definitely helped build the suspense, because you knew deep down it wouldn’t end well. It was like a train wreck you couldn’t look away from.

The Baron’s War, which is an important point referenced throughout the novel, was very confusing. It seems like it should have been straightforward, but I found the authors explanation insufficient. Am I dense or was it not explained well? For how important a role it played, I think it needed to be expounded upon more than a couple of sentences.

The authors note explains the division of the novel into four parts, based on specific ballads of Robin Hood lore. However I think it messed up the pacing of the plot because it didn’t feel like the story had much of a direction until over halfway through where the plot really starts to thicken. I admire the intent to stick close to the historical lore, but I think this could have been achieved while having a more defining and clear plot line.

Overall, I liked it! It was a refreshing and unique take on a story that usually falls to stereotypical and tired tropes.

Thank you to NetGalley and Viking Penguin for the ARC!

4 Stars

First off, thank you to the publisher and author for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This book is a refreshing take on the Robin Hood legend, nestled among a sea of Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, and other familiar retellings. And I must say, it was beautiful. I love how everything unfolded. Jane, the FMC, was naive, but not in a way that made her irritating. She was clever, just learning and growing in her own way. Robin, on the other hand, was a character I both loved and hated, in the best way possible. He felt so human—flawed, complex, and unpredictable.

The side characters were a delightful addition to the story, each one adding something special to the narrative, and the ending… oh, the ending! It wrapped everything up perfectly, leaving me beyond satisfied. There was a warmth to this book that stayed with me from start to finish. The entire journey felt like being enchanted in the best possible way.

This book has that comforting vibe I crave, with the perfect blend of emotional depth and rich character development. It’s the kind of story that lingers with you long after you've closed the pages.

This was such a fun twist on Robin hood. I love that it's been totally turned around and put into this amazingly funny story.

This was a decent book, you might enjoy this if you like Robin Hood. However, I don't understand why the main character, Jane, was needed. She added nothing to the story and it was way too long.

The Traitor of Sherwood Forest was an interesting tale of Robin Hood. I thought it was okay. I don't think I would read it again. There wasn't much happening in my opinion.

Thank you to Penguin Books and #NetGalley for the advanced copy. All the above opinions are my own.

I liked this! It's a new type of fantasy world and it's a really interesting plot. The characters are well developed enough that you are interested in them as well as what's going on.

Amy Kaufman’s The Traitor of Sherwood Forest gave me everything I’ve ever wanted in a historical fiction novel.

The Traitor of Sherwood Forest takes a departure from the modern depictions of Robin Hood to delve into a (perhaps) more historically accurate version of the legend. Kaufman blends a medieval historical setting together with a Robin Hood out of the traditional ballads to create a Robin Hood that I haven’t seen before. He’s charming and charismatic but also vicious and at times, wildly unkind. He’s a Robin that parrots a credo of loyalty and uplifting the disadvantaged while constantly picking fights that leave his gang in danger and using the servants and working people he claims to be working to free.

The story is told from the point of view of not Robin or any of his men, but by Jane, a serving girl, a nobody, but also an accomplish to Robin’s tricks. Jane constantly finds herself divided, pulled between her loyalty to Robin but also her own morals and values. Robin and his men constantly challenge Jane’s view of morality and goodness. While this is a story of Robin Hood (of course), it’s also a story of Jane, of her ability to make changes to her world despite being constantly overlooked. It’s the story of a woman discovering what is important to her and finding her voice to stand up for what she believes.

It’s a story about the choices that we make everyday.

Kaufman tells a fantastic story. Rooted in researched historical context, I just came along for the ride. With loyalty and power dynamics constantly switching, I felt Jane’s whiplash, her eagerness to trust, but also her fear of who to trust. I questioned throughout the novel just who was the traitor of Sherwood, because Kaufman wove a tale that felt like wolves circling Jane from all sides.

Could there have been more introspection on Jane’s part? More of her thoughts shown to us on the page? Sure. But Kaufman developed her characters through their actions rather than their words. After all, what are words but pretty lies in the face of actions?

Overall, this novel was really solid for me. It felt researched, methodical, and woven together in the way I would expect a medieval ballad to be. I liked this more morally ambiguous Robin Hood portrayal, and the ways Jane and the other, more disadvantaged, characters were actually affected by his actions.

Thank you to NetGalley and Amy Kaufman! I had high hopes for this book, but I don't think it was for me, but it may be for you! The overall premise sounded intriguing: a woman following her date into the woods, only to encounter the legendary Robin Hood and his merry men. However, the development of the main female character was what disappointed me most. It's clear that Robin Hood is the star; he's charismatic, persuasive, and used to getting his way. In contrast, the female lead comes across as rather one-dimensional. She feels easily manipulated by Robin, with little agency or strong personality of her own. The author seems to have written her more as a plot device than a fully fleshed-out character. I enjoyed the setting, and the details of the period felt authentic and well-researched. If you're a fan of Robin Hood tales, you may enjoy that aspect of the story. Overall, I wished the female lead had been written with more depth and complexity. The book did not engage me fully without a strong central character to latch onto. I think it could have benefited from further character development to make the protagonist a more active, exciting part of the narrative. I did DNF around 50% of the way through, but I would give it another chance.

3.75 ⭐️

Around 60% I found myself wanting this to wrap up and just be done already. I just found a lot of this slow, tedious filler and I saw the plot twist in the dream. I enjoyed this, but maybe not as much as I had hoped. The twist with Robin was so good though, it was such a subtle and steady development, and I almost wish it had dragged out a bit longer, it felt a little too clean in the end!

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin Books for this ARC!

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.