This was a well crafted genderbent retelling that unfortunately feels very timely.

This is a retelling of Robin Hood with most of the gender roles reversed. The characters aren’t all that fleshed out, but it’s still entertaining to read this take on a rousing revolutionary story from a female perspective. In fact, Silvie, the soon-to-be “Queen of the Forest” takes on her role as “Robin Hood” after discovering another female, “Little Jane,” who is despondent over having been in a #MeToo situation. Rape, in most previous eras and even today in many cultures, is regarded as evidence that the female is wanton, and she is “dishonored” and scorned. Silvie has [thus far] escaped the worst elements of that fate, but she doesn’t feel totally safe in her home situation. But as Silvie muses, “Surely there’s more honor in - in going on.” Little Jane can’t go home, and so Silvie opts to join her in exile in Woodshire Forest.

They don’t go alone; they are joined by Robert Falconer, known as Bird, who is trustworthy and totally devoted to Silvie, as well as being devoted to the welfare of their city. After the threesome spring a midwife (“Mae Tuck”) out of the jail in order to help with Little Jane’s impending childbirth, others soon join their ranks in the forest. In order to feed and care for everyone, they start robbing from the coffers of the Sheriff and even of the King, and redistributing the money to their band as well as the poor of the town.

Most of the characters from the original Robin Hood’s Merry Men make an appearance. There are almost no women in the classic Robin Hood stories, so many of them are transformed here to women. For example, Alan-a-Dale is now Alana Dale. There is even a switch of species, as with Much and Scarlett.

Discussion: There isn’t a lot of world-building, but there really doesn’t need to be. The underlying plot of rich, oppressive, and abusive overlords doesn’t need much in the way of embellishment. Except for Silvie and Little Jane, the characters aren’t well developed either, but most readers will know the original stories of Robin Hood. The delight comes from the fundamental changes in form the author makes, rather than from any deepening or rounding out of different actors in the story.

Evaluation: This gender-switched Robin Hood makes for a fun and satisfying read.

The Forest Queen is a book of rebelling for the right reasons. Its a book that gives hope to the little guys. Its a book that gives the feeling that things will always get better. Its a book that shows all different forms of love.

If you cant tell already from my intro I really enjoyed this book and all it had to offer my ever starving brain. The main character is a lady of a noble house and has the benefits of all that comes with it. Until one day she finds herself second guessing all of her reasons for staying where she is and the adventure begins.

I learned a few things in reading The Forest Queen.
Love in all its forms is not easy, it's rough and it's raw.
Always have hope, even in the unknown, even when you think there is nothing left to hope for. You never know where it will get you if you just keep hold of that sliver of hope.
And most of all I learnt I need to know what other books have been written by the wonderful Betsy Cornwall.

Happy Reading booknerds =]

I tried to read this book but the copy was not able to be downloaded in pdf or sent to my kindle.

Sorry!

Absolutely loved the evolution of the main character.

Robin Hood except everyone is a girl.

As a confirmed compulsive reader of every possible Robin Hood retelling, I SURE WAS EXCITED for this one! It's okay, but overall it seemed really incredibly short. There was barely any time for anything to happen, and everything that did happen was super straightforward.

Some people aren't girls: the bad guy, and the main love interest.

These two guys, the main character Sylvie, and Little Jane are really the only 4 characters that you actually get to know. Which kind of kicks the ratio of "Robin Hood except everyone is a girl" back down to "Robin Hood except half the people are girls." Disappointing.

We just needed more time, and more complexity, so that we could have spent more than two seconds with Alan-of-Dale and The Saracen and Mae Tuck and literally everyone else who wasn't these 4 characters. The first half of the book that almost solely focused on Sylvie, Bird, and Jane was great -- as soon as they began adding more people in the second half, though, it felt increasingly like the author had just started checking off required "Robin Hood" boxes so quickly they became meaningless.

We didn't get to see them growing together as a band. We saw them pull off one unrealistically simple heist. The fantasy Not-England country the story takes place in is apparently the size of a shoebox, and I'm confused by the lack of worldbuilding in general. We got only TWO isolated instances of Sylvie even shooting a bow, both of which took places before they had been outlawed. There just was not enough here, and what was here seemed far too simplistic.

I was looking forward to this book but I wasn’t able to get the file to work.

As much as I'd love to read this book, I was unable to due to available format.

First off I will say I love the cover. I was really looking forward to reading this story but I could not review the book in its current format. It continually crashed my computer after the first chapter. Which by itself was good (the 1st chapter, not the computer crashing), but I am sad I could not get to read more.

My apologies -- I could not review the book in its current format :( If it is available as a kindle book, I would love to review.

"The huntswoman sounded her horn and hounds rushed like water around our horses' feet..."

Started off beautifully, with a gorgeous, evocative first line. <i>And then the murders began...</i> However, then it continued on being way too descriptive of animals in pain due to human male's ineptitude. Hunting turns my stomach, could not finish and can not rate.