The Traitor of Sherwood Forest - Amy S. Kaufman - ★.½

AUTHOR: Amy S. Kaufman

GENRE: Historical Fiction.

PUBLICATION DATE: April 29, 2025.

RATING: 1.5 stars.

In a Nutshell: A historical fiction retelling the story of Robinhood from the perspective of one of his female group members. Loved the intent, especially the idea of presenting the original picture of Robinhood from medieval ballads. However, the execution didn’t work for me. This felt more like YA fiction (except that it isn’t YA-friendly). Bland narrator, minimal character development, and a lot of needless focus on physical attraction (with an equally unnecessary romantic triangle.) It might work better for those who don’t read much historical fiction but are interested in a Robinhood retelling.

Plot Preview:

Jane is an ordinary peasant girl with an uncaring mother more interested in her own dalliances and elder brothers who don’t have much time for their only sister. So when her beau Bran suggests that she work for the infamous Lord of the Greenwood, Jane is taken aback but willing to give her new assignment a try. What initially seems to be a straightforward spy job soon turns into a challenging game of keeping ahead. Further complicating the matter is Jane’s attraction to Robinhood, whose behaviour doesn’t seem to match his reputation. When things escalate beyond control, Jane is forced to take some tough decisions.

The story comes to us mostly in Jane’s third-person perspective.

PSA: The blurb reveals too much, including an important spoiler from the final quarter.

I’ve never read a Robinhood retelling, and I’ve not read the original ballads. What I know of this legendary character is limited to what I have watched in a couple of Hollywood movies, which are obviously not historically accurate, and a children’s abridged storybook. As such, I had been looking forward to this novel with great anticipation. I still remember how happy I had been when my request for this book had been approved. Unfortunately, the writing style, the plot development, and the characters didn’t click for me at all.

Bookish Yays:

🎯 The author’s note. Brilliant in every way, this note explains her writing choices and offers insight into the legend. Had the writing actually matched up to the thoughts expressed here, the novel would have easily crossed 4 stars for me.

🎯 I like the intent of representing the original portrayal of Robinhood from the medieval ballads, which doesn't match his modern-day image of a hero. Was he written well? No. But I appreciated the less-idealised and supposedly authentic take, and learnt a lot about some of his beliefs and controversies.

Bookish Mixed Bags:

🏹 Ibota, the prioress – the only character written well, but in a relatively limited role. I might even have liked hearing this story from her perspective.

🏹 The ending. Faithful to the legends, but abrupt in its execution.

Bookish Nays:

➴ A wavering tempo, with the proceedings either being too slow (especially at the start with each event going on for an overly long time) or too rushed (especially in the final section.) The action is meagre at the start and overloaded at the end.

➴ Jane as a narrator – so bland! She is sometimes observational, but her perspective includes a lot of ‘telling’, which is difficult to accept considering her ignorance. (Some of the telling is just unbelievable. How the heck would you see “healthy thighs” under medieval gowns?) There’s also a lot of repetition in her narration. Multiple times, she's surprised to find that characters are taller than she thought they were.

➴ All the scenes of longing and lust! I missed seeing the word ‘sultry’ in the blurb, but even if I had, I wouldn’t have thought that it would be so dominant in a historical retelling. Even in between serious discussions, we get information about the salacious stirrings Jane feels at Robin's sight. Ugh!

➴ To make it worse, there’s a partial romantic triangle, with Jane constantly swerving between Bran and Robinhood. This is the worst-written of the subplots. When Jane is with Bran, she wants Robin, and when she’s with Robin, she longs for Bran. That’s it. No logic or depth to it.

➴ The minimal character development. Characters contradict their own statements and beliefs all the time. Robinhood should have been a grey character, given the intent expressed in the author’s note, but he turns out to be mostly dark and manipulative. Jane is naïve and wilful, and seems to be more dominated by her lust than by her mind. It is weird how Jane suddenly knows Robinhood better than all the men who've been with him for far longer. Robin’s not-so-merry men also have an appearance in this book, with most of them not having well-sketched portrayals.

➴ Thanks to the above, the connection between the characters never feels organic. We see them having feelings for each other, but never understand the hows and whys. The relationships hence feel surface-level. Jane’s attraction towards Robinhood is the least convincing.

➴ The dialogues are somewhat movie-like in their extravagance, making the book feel like a screenplay at times. This might be entertaining for some readers, but the unrealistic tone of the conversations pulled me out of the narrative. It’s annoying to see historical characters use interjections such as “Shit!”, “My arse!” or the F word. There are a few other anachronistic phrases such as someone “having a tell.” This negated the effect of the few instances where genuine medieval spellings have been used, which I had appreciated.

➴ I didn’t expect a strong literary feel anyway from such a plotline, but I did expect a stronger historical feel. There IS historical content but the characters’ thoughts and actions feel more modern. (Not 21st-century-modern, but definitely not 12-13th century.) The least convincing is the idea of Jane and a couple of other ladies spouting modern feminist thoughts about women’s emancipation and freedom of choice. Hah!

All in all, I had expected to love this book, especially as a lover of historical fiction and atypical retellings. However the overall book reads like a YA work (except for the adult content such as cuss words, lewd thoughts, and gruesome action.) It’s very lightweight as a historical novel. I cannot deny the potential of this idea of showing the negative shades of Robinhood’s character, but the execution leaves much to be desired.

This is the author’s debut novel, and her prior works have been scholarly nonfiction. A part of me feels like this book too would have worked better as a nonfiction, offering us the truth about Robinhood’s character as portrayed in the medieval ballads, and cutting out the ignorant Jane as the narrator. As a historical fiction, it just doesn’t hit the bullseye.

I’m not sure whom to recommend this to as it was a below-average experience for me. However, no two readers read the same book. Perhaps this might work better for readers who don’t read historical fiction often and are open to a novel view into the medieval hero’s life.

My thanks to Penguin Group - Viking for providing the DRC of “The Traitor of Sherwood Forest” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book. Sorry this didn’t work out better.