The Warrior Maiden
By Melanie Dickerson
Courageous and brave Mulan takes the place of her deceased father to fight in order to save her and her mother’s home. Although you might think you know the story of Mulan this spin on the tale is a quite different adventure than the original. I really enjoyed this story as it was well written and kept my attention until the end.

Going into this book, I was a little skeptical since I wasn’t a huge fan of Dickerson’s last book. (The Orphan’s Wish.) However, this one did pick things up a little.
I’ll start with saying that I’m really, really, glad that Dickerson stayed true to Mulan’s ethnicity. It was nice that she was open to presenting a non-white female antagonist. I also loved Mulan’s character. She was fierce and independent, but still kind and gentle. I think of all the books by Dickerson that I have read so far, Mulan is my favourite female character. She was stronger than the others and didn’t let men do all the fighting for her. I can’t say I was a huge fan of Wolfgang… He was okay, but I felt that there wasn’t a great deal of development or depth. A lot of the time spent from his POV, was him obsessing over whether or not Mulan was in love with him. This was also the case for Mulan’s POV and combined, it made me rather bored. On that note… about 50% of the way, the action just died off and I wondered, “What is left to happen?” It picked up again at 70%, but I ended up skimming most of the stuff between 50% and 70% (the majority was simply Mulan and Wolfgang trying to decide whether or not they loved the other. A little speculation is fine, but after a bit, this became tedious).
Another thing that really bugged me, was the world building. This is a new area for Dickerson so she should set the stage, but I got very little. I was left with the skeleton of a picture in my mind. This was similar to other aspects of her writing too. There wasn’t quite enough description. It was simple and to the point. Which is sometimes fine, but Dickerson has written a great number of books already so I expected more colour.
An enormous positive factor was that this was a clean read. There were some kisses (maybe more than other Dickerson novels?), but they weren’t overly graphic.
I recommend this book to those who enjoy fairytale retellings. Although I warn you, the romance is rather sappy (and a touch cliche?). But maybe you don’t mind?
I received a complimentary copy of this book from Thomas Nelson through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

The Warrior Maiden is the 9th book in the Hagenheim series. I've enjoyed this series so far, even if the stories have been hit-or-miss.

I found parts of this book to be unbelievable, which was a slight negative for me. I didn't particularly care for the romance either. I enjoyed the writing style and archery elements.

All in all, The Warrior Maiden was okay. I liked the book.

*Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one or more of the products or services mentioned above for free in the hope that I would mention/review it on my blog. I was not required to give a positive review, only my honest opinion - which I've done. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own and I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.*

The Warrior Maiden by Melanie Dickerson
This is a retelling of the legend of Mulan – the girl who becomes a soldier to assume her deceased father’s duties in war. This is the 9th book in the Hagenheim series by Melanie Dickerson.

My 15 year old granddaughter suggested I read this series earlier this year. I read all 9 books in the series in the past few months. They are all fairy tale retellings (at least loosely) and they all have a Christian element to them.

I really enjoyed this book. The Hagenheim series started out strong for me, but around book 6 or 7 I started to get a bit bored. The stories do tend to be formulaic and simple. However, I love the historical aspect of the books and the connection to the fairy tales is a neat concept. The Warrior Maiden was not boring in my opinion. I really enjoyed this one! Mulan was a strong warrior, a skilled archer, and super brave. While this story was also a tad formulaic, taking it out of the castle setting and creating a war setting made this book unique. This book was action-packed! There is some war violence but it isn’t gory or gratuitous. The dialogue can be a bit stilted at times and the manufactured angst feels a bit immature to me, even for YA, but even that doesn’t detract too much from what is ultimately a nice story.

I personally love the Christian aspect these books have. I don’t feel like any of it is “preachy”, but the stories do emphasize Christian characters that pray and put their faith in God. This book took an interesting angle regarding the Christian element – showing that people that consider themselves Christian may actually be inserting their own thoughts and ideas about Christianity rather than actually following God’s Word (i.e., killing people if they don’t convert, etc.).

I also love that these books take place in a historical setting – 14th Century Europe. I think it is very beneficial for young readers to learn about history, even if it is from a fiction book, if for no other reason than to see how different things were – and how similar!

I would recommend this series to any teenager. I’m well beyond my teenage years, but I enjoyed this series, also! They are sweet, simple love stories with a strong focus on doing what is right. I would recommend reading the series in order if you are interested. The stories don’t necessarily depend on each other - each plot is different – but the characters are all from the same family (the Hagenheims) so some references may not make sense without knowing previous stories.

The Warrior Maiden is one of my favorites in the Hagenheim series!

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Thomas Nelson through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Cinderella, Snow White, and Beauty and the Beast are common fairy tale retellings. Melanie Dickerson has tackled those as well. Mulan is not one a reader commonly sees. So I was excited when I saw this. After reading it I was not disappointed.
Mulan is the clumsy and unfeminine illegitimate daughter of a soldier and his mistress. Despite this Mulan is raised and loved by her father's wife. When her father passes and her mother risks being removed from their home Mulan agrees to marry the town butcher. However, after meeting this man, Mulan finds him appalling and decides to take her father's place in the army. With the help of her father's assistant - kind of like a squire - she is able to join the army.
While training and defending the territory of Duke Konrad Mulan meets Wolfgang. The younger son of another Duke. Even though Wolfgang is struggling to become his own man and get his older brother on his side of a war; he finds a kinship with a new soldier that is more than a little weird.
For those who like fairy tales I recommend this book. While set in a different country and moves at a pace different than the Mulan many may be used to; The Warrior Maiden proves its self as a good read and great story.

This is my first time reading a book by Melanie Dickerson and overall I found it enjoyable to read. This is a very different retelling of Mulan, she's in a totally different country with a different religion, different language, different everything! But that's the beauty of a retelling, it doesn't have to be close to the original at all. Mulan is still a strong character in this book, maybe more headstrong than strong natured but she sticks to her wits throughout the whole book.

The only thing I didn't particularly care for is how early on she's revealed as being a woman warrior. It happens within the first half of the book and nobody really seems to care except the Teutonic Knights. I found it very hard to believe that during whatever time period, minus modern times, that this would just be wholly accepted. After she's found out, not a whole lot changes but the whole second half of the books becomes more of what will happen between Mulan and Wolfgang and less about the war.

ARC provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

Before I begin this review: I firmly hold to the fact that any book reviewer has an absolute right to say what they like or hate any book. There’s no way everyone will like every book. If your review disagrees with mine, that’s ok.
It looks as if my review will differ greatly from some others on this particular book. But that’s the beauty of what we as readers have the privilege of sharing, and we can give each other grace to disagree agreeably.

I’m going to begin by addressing a couple of aspects of this book that seem to have others upset in their reviews.

First: This is a book published by a major Christian publisher, written by a well-known Christian author who has written quite a few Christian fiction books.
So why is it a surprise that the characters in the book are Christian? That’s the viewpoint of the author, and it’s not like anyone tried to hide it. I’ve lately made the mistake of choosing a book from a genre that I would not have chosen if I’d read the book description a little more closely. But that’s my fault. I didn’t blame the author for that. I was not her intended audience.

Second: This is not the first time any author—secular or Christian—has changed the details of a popular character in literature.
(I mean, how many variations have we read that feature Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy in different time periods or locations?). The author of this book has changed details about Mulan to fit her book series. I thought it gave the story a different twist and I enjoyed that.

Third: And I did enjoy this story. I felt that this story did justice to the character of Mulan. She’s brave, strong, independent, fierce, and compassionate. She’s a true warrior. She has a deep love for her mother and is willing to sacrifice everything to take care of her. I also liked the character of Wolfgang. He shares the same characteristics as Mulan, and that makes for a sweet love story between them as they care for each other and help each other during battle.
I don’t want to give away the plot in this story, but it shows just how much they are willing to sacrifice for the other. That makes them true equals in the best of ways.

If you are a fan of this series of Melanie Dickerson, you’ll like this book.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher. All opinions are my own.

Oh wow! New favorite author found! Melanie writes an extraordinary Mulan retelling. She writes this story with such fluidity and does kindly on touching on the effects of racism. I loved how strong the characters are in this novel. Mulan becomes a fierce warrior and truly grows into herself! Superb writing and wonderful character development.

This book started out very strong. Mulan is a likable character. However, I didn’t likee the end. Mulan is such a strong character and in the Disney movie she savvy herself. However, the end was a disappointment. She turned into a damsel in distress. Unlike the movie, she did not save the man. Rather, the man locked her up to save her. Instead, he was the savior. I don’t understand what had happened. Why make Mulan so weak and whimpering at the end? This was a disappointment to one of my favorite characters, and I don’t know why the author made to where she did not save herself, but needed a man to save her. It goes against the Mulan legend for she was such a strong heroine.

I wanted to love this book, but I’m sorry to say I didn’t. It was, well very odd really, Mulan seemed to exist in ‘limbo’ with no proper cultural setting nor context. The fact that her character was downplayed to enable the male ‘hero’ to shine also really annoyed me. I ended up skim reading the second half, I wasn’t invested at all in the story.
Not one for me I’m afraid.
I was given a ARC by NetGalley, all opinions are my own.

Unfortunately, I have to say that I found Dickerson's novel a tad disappointing. To say that twisting the legend of Mulan for an artist's own renderings and imagination is a nicer way of stating how I truly felt. However, the way that Melanie Dickerson described and wrote Mulan put a knife to my heart and twisted over and over and over again.

How can I describe The Warrior Maiden? Simply put, it was confusing. I was not aware of the fact that this book was simply an addition to another series, and so the characters that were thrust in my face were unfamiliar and discombobulating. The setting of Lithuania was just...incomprehensible to me (I didn't exactly see the point as to why Mulan would set there), and the story of Mulan herself left me angry, frustrated, and overall just incredibly unhappy with how the author portrayed such a classic legend.

Mulan is Chinese. Whether or not Mulan was male or female has been left unclear by history, but the movie itself is such a classic that I took Mulan as a female to be a matter of fact. That's not where I found fault with the book. It was just the sheer absurdity of the setting that completely threw me off. Who let Dickerson spin a wheel with famous heroines and random locations and then just throw darts until she hit two that somehow made a story? Mulan in Lithuania is like Scheherazade in Canada: It makes no literary sense.

And unfortunately for everyone involved, Dickerson is no great historian. Nor, by how she wrote the legend of Mulan, a great researcher as well. The whole point of Mulan, the Disney movie, is to show how brave a person can be in the name of loyalty and honor. The Mulan I read about in The Warrior Maiden painted Mulan as a girl who ran off to avoid marriage and then let her legend get ruined by the first swashbuckling knight she meets? What in the name of Putin?

Now one might have noticed by now that my quibbles are primarily with Mulan herself. Dickerson wrote a solid story (of sorts) with the other characters within the novel itself, but to say that I could not care one whit about Wolfgang and Steffan is, again, a sweet way of saying that I didn't quite care for how much Steffan disliked his father.

Also, who decided that thrusting Christianity into a book was a smart idea? Whoever decided to make Mulan a Christian is getting a boot in the ass from my foot real soon.

I love all of Melanie Dickerson's books that I have read. This book was no exception. It was a great read with well developed characters.

I love all of Melanie’s novel and although this one isn’t my favorite, If you’re looking for a light, clean read...this book will suit you!!

I won't be publishing a review, or giving this book a rating on my blog or goodreads as I couldn't manage to finish it. I was excited to see an adaptation of Mulan but didn't like the whitewashing part. As a South Asian ALL Asian rep has been important to me - whether it's Indian or Chinese. And her being white in this was a big con for me. In addition to that I felt like her strength was downplayed by having the guy play the hero. It's not the Mulan I wanted to see and is just disappointing.

This book is a dnf but I'm also disappointed in what I did read, therefore I stand by my one star rating.

*** Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with an ARC! ***

I love the way Melanie Dickerson paints a picture with her writing. Even in her first few lines her details allowed me to fully envision Mulan's world and actions. It was a great retelling with a beautiful atmosphere.

Hmmm. This one was better than the last one, but I feel like maybe she is taking this too far and too long.

I still didn't like that she used the real name. It's just so hard to let this be it's own story, plus, the name doesn't fit into the setting. The explanation of how she got where she is was fine.

I liked Wolfgang's character a lot (although the nickname made me grimace). It was interesting to see how one event shaped both him and Steffan in two different ways. Also, it was neat to see how Wolfgang and Mulan were each sort of struggling with the same thing in but in very different ways. We all have struggles and things that shape us but the same event or struggle affects each person differently.

Some complain about the Mulan in the movies as being too "girl power". I personally like the movies and don't see that aspect and neither do I see it in this book. A strong female character does not "girl power" make.

I don't think I have ever said this about a book before, but I truly believe that people are being to hard on this book.

They object to Mulan being Chinese and being "dropped" into Mrs. Dickerson's Hagenheim world. First of all, that's just it. It's HER world and she can't drop everything and jump to an entirely different place totally unconnected with her series and tell a story. I thought her adaption was tastefully done. She gave good reason and background for Mulan's presence in Lithuania (which, by the way, I really appreciated Lithuania because it gave more of a feel/atmosphere similar to the original Mulan story while still creating something new). It was a bit awkward at points because of her different ethnicity and her being dropped into such a different environment, but here's the real question: how couldn't it be? I appreciate how Mrs. Dickerson brought this story to life, yet I would have been more upset if she hadn't preserved Mulan's ethnicity or if she had made it entirely normal for Mulan to be present in a society where she would have stood out so much.

The story itself? I loved it! I loved how she approached the relationship between Wolfgang and Mulan. It was sweet and good. Furthermore, and most importantly to me, it wasn't weird. As in, Wolfgang and Mulan somehow liking each other before Wolfgang knew she was actually a girl. I truly appreciated the lines she drew between them and the distance she held between them a while after Wolfgang discovered the truth of her gender to make absolutely clear that he was not attracted to her when he thought she was a boy.

As to the kissing, which some have downplayed, I was under the impression from some reviews that there wouldn't be a single kiss. I was wrong. There were quite a few, but they were a good number and, I thought, a good quality. Sweet and fulfilling and good. Not the kind that leaves you with a pit in your stomach and a bunch of unsatisfied angst.

Thank you for such a wonderful book, Mrs. Dickerson!

I have been reading Melanie Dickerson's books since 2010. And though I have not LOVED all of the books I have read by her, I always add her YA fairy tale retellings to my TBR.

Her newest it a light retelling of Mulan. Did I LOVE it? Hm, I say not LOVE. But I enjoyed it and think it is one of my most loved out of all her books to date.

This book had so many twists. A summary of my mental musings about these twists: "Like, wow, did not see that coming.... Whoah, what happened? Eeeek! Poor characters! GET TOGETHER ALREADY!!!!!"

Another thing I liked is that it also lightly touched on the damaging effects of racism. Mulan, the only girl of Mongolian decent in her village, suffered unjustly because she did not look like everyone else. Total reminder that we should not treat people badly because they are different. *looks at rude villagers* Not cool, guys.

As someone who is facinated in Asian cultures, I would have loved there to be more of a Mongolian feel to the book. Yet I understand why Dickerson did not do so in this tale. The book is part of series that follow European characters. She wanted to include a Mulan story in her series of fairy tale retellings, and she did BUT in a subtle way. (I guess this might throw off some readers looking for a purely Asian-set retelling, so if that is what you are looking for, this is not the book for you.) So, though it could have been better, it was still okay for me that she chose this route for this retelling.

Story negatives...

Okay, so maybe it is because I read an ARC, but I felt like Mulan's character had a major flip from clumsy to warrior. In the beginning, she is portrayed to be a struggling clumsy maiden (lol, like me!), but when she becomes a warrior it just goes away. Totally threw me off a bit. Maybe her confidence took over, but I feel that, realistcally, she would still struggle some with her lack of gracefullness despite becoming a soldier.

And...yeah.

With a few nods to the Disney film mixed with a whole lot of faith, this book is sure to take Dickerson's fans on an exciting journey that they will be able to enjoy far from the danger of battles.

I give "The Warrior Maiden" a rating of four. No, you do not have to read the books before this one to enjoy it, but you will totally be missing the full experience if you don't read them first. It releases early 2019, so...

#TheWarriorMaiden #NetGalley

She knew a woman was expected to marry, cook, and have children, not go to war. Can she manage to stay alive, save her mother, and keep the handsome son of a duke from discovering her secret?

When Mulan decides to take her father’s place in battle against the besieging Teutonic Knights, she realizes she has been preparing for this moment her whole life—and that her life, and her mother’s, depends on her success. As the adopted daughter of poor parents, she has little power in the world. If she can’t prove herself on the battlefield, she could face death—or, perhaps worse, marriage to the village butcher.

In her disguise as a young man, Mulan meets Wolfgang, the German duke’s son who is determined to save his people even if it means fighting against his own brother. Wolfgang is exasperated by the young soldier who seems to be one step away from disaster at all times—or showing Wolfgang up in embarrassing ways.

From rivals to reluctant friends, Mulan and Wolfgang begin to share secrets with one another. But war is an uncertain time and dreams can die as quickly as they are born. When Mulan receives word of danger back home, she must make the ultimate choice. Could she be the son her bitter father never had? Or would she become the strong young woman she has been created to be?

This fresh reimagining of the classic tale takes us to fifteenth-century Lithuania where both love and war challenge the strongest of hearts.

I admit I Love Dickerson's novels. This one, though, was not a favorite. I felt that Mulan was noble and brave but kind of built up due to the prophecy about her. She did aid in defeat, but it was not her alone. As for a character I had a hard time liking her and sympathizing with her. She was all about God's will when fighting, but when it came to her own personal problems she almost seemed to turn her back on God's help and tried to do it all herself. It felt like she had more of a selfish nature that was overlooked because of her success.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Thomas Nelson through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

We all know the tale: a tomboyish Asian girl takes up the sword in her father's place pretending to be a man and saving the world through her hidden wommanness at the same time. This book puts quite the spin on that tale.

There have been many updated fairy tales in the past dozen years or so (this is the ninth in a series of retold fairies, and my second attempt at the series) and they often change the original story. Otherwise, everyone would only read the originals and these new books would have nothing to offer. I'm not always a fan of the changes authors choose to make, like taking this story out of Asia and dropping it into fifteenth century Lithuania, but it's not as bad as it could have been. Mulan herself hasn't been whitewashed, at least.

The tale of Mulan will always be a story about a girl doing things that would have been out of place for a normal woman of her time, but I still think the author makes the anachronisms worse with excerpts like this: “It wasn't that she couldn't marry him, but that she'd rather take her chances as a soldier. After all, she'd always been terrible at cooking and humbling herself to men—even her own father.” Soldier or not, rebel or not, no fifteenth century Eastern European woman is going to think like that. It's just not realistic. At the same time, this Mulan is much more of a weenie than the Disney Mulan, who was all for killing the Huns and being a proper warrior. This Mulan squeals at the sight of blood and gets dizzy at the thought that her arrow might kill someone. Um, what were you practicing archery for all this time if not to kill things? She's quite gag-worthy at times.

Not long after this, Mulan is perfectly content to just hang out and chit chat about God with her new beau, not worrying about how she doesn't want to “humble herself” to a man. As long as that man is nice, humbling yourself to him is fine, apparently. All this for a guy who, though he has known she's a woman for a while now, only thinks she's beautiful once she's put on gender-appropriate clothes and makeup. Sounds like a keeper to me. Marrying him would definitely be better than being humbled by that nice boy from your hometown who left everything to help you go to war.

By far my biggest complaint about the book is the rampant Christian proselytizing. I don't mind when characters in a book are religious, especially when it makes sense for the time, but this goes way overboard. It's “Go with God” and “I pray to God” and “God in Heaven” constantly. Maybe the author truly believes that's how people talked at this time, but it constantly makes me uncomfortable as I'm reading. I just really hope this is marketed clearly as Christian Fiction. (An example in this book of where I think the talk of God is warranted is when Mulan climbs freehand up the side of a cliff and almost falls, etc, but when she reaches the top she says “Thank you, God.” In this place, it makes perfect sense for the character to pray. It's the unnecessary God talk that I have a problem with.) It's passages like this that I have a problem with:

Mother asked Algirdas to say a prayer over the food.
“You are Christians, then?” The butcher glanced from Mother to Mulan.
“We are. My family converted when I was a young girl.”
They all bowed their heads, and Algirdas said a rote prayer of thanks and dedication in the name of Jesus.

And that is the entire mention of Christianity in the first chapter. Does it further the plot? I don't see how. It seems to me to be nothing more than the author's way of forcing her religion down unsuspecting readers' throats. I don't know how this book will be marketed but but I hope no one markets this as straight YA Historical Fiction when it really is Christian Fiction. In my humble opinion, authors can write whatever they want, but to make your characters a certain religion only alienates certain readers, like myself, and it makes some of us feel uncomfortable, as if proselytizers were allowed into my living room to force me to convert to their religion. There's just no need for that.

Let me put it another way. If it made no difference to the story, but the author decided to make the main families in this novel recently-converted Muslims, would that bother you? Would you be as ready to root for them? What if they constantly prayed to Allah or yelled Allahu Akbar? It's just unnecessary.

The actual story in this book is hard to rate—there is just too much other stuff going on, mostly the overt religiosity and the author's desire to write a run-of-the-mill teen romance in the guise of historical fiction. Mulan herself isn't a hard character to root for, and Wolfgang has plenty to endear himself to us, but much of the book is battle scenes, romantic scenes, or Mulan dealing with her gender one way or another (either hilariously hiding it from the men or feeling all womanly and pretty). It devolves into a Marriage Plot rather quickly (Mulan is discovered as a woman at about the 1/3 mark). I might have given the book 3 stars if not for all the Christianity shoved down my throat. A lot of YA books, especially historical fiction (though it's really not fair to categorize this as HF) focus so much on the romance that there's little room for anything else, but I find it insulting that authors think women have nothing more interesting to offer than how they make men feel. This is about one of the fiercest warriors in history and she becomes so obsessed with whether her beau likes her and completely loses herself whenever he looks at her. Where are the accurate depictions of girls and women in YA these days?

TL;DR: If you're a Christian and you like to remain in your comfy feedback loop, this book will be great. It is NOT historical fiction. It is Christian fiction.

Things the author kept in from the Disney version of Mulan so we would all recognize it even though it lost much of what made up the original: Mulan having to cut her hair to blend in (even though there probably were plenty of men with long hair), Mulan's desire to bathe risking being found out as a woman, a few unaddressed homosexual tendencies when men feel attracted to Mulan though they think her a man, lots of battles where Mulan proves herself far more valuable than the men who have been training to be soldiers for most of their lives, much more romance than is warranted by a warrior's tale, and Mulan's injury getting her discovered as a woman. Sadly though, no grandmother shouting at the hotness of Mulan's boytoy “Whoo-ee, sign me up for the next war!” Very much a missed opportunity.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Thomas Nelson through Netgalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. And when I requested this book from Netgalley, the book was categorized as Historical Fiction and Teens & YA, only. In the description of the book, there is not a single mention of God, Christianity, or religion of any kind. I only found out after I had won the book that it was the ninth in a series of Christian Fiction books.