I have read one book in the past by Melanie Dickerson. I believe it was called The Huntress and that was a 3 star read for me. Looks like we are still on that similar path for this book.

Dickerson combines the classic tale with both history and religion. This one in particular covers the retelling of Mulan. The thrust of the original story is pretty much intact, with the exception of the characters having strong faith. Yes, this is Christian fiction which aren't my favorite BUT if done right and isn't pounded into your face, I can deal with it but this was... definitly a bit chastising.

Though the writing is very buttery and structured, I personally feel there were a plot twists that seemed simply too convenient and I find that to be a common theme with Dickerson's stories. I want to see this author branch out of her element and try something new when it comes to genre. I hope to see that one day

When I started this book, I had no idea that it was a Christian book. That being said, about 20% of the way through it became very distracting. I tried to ignore it as much as possible and instead pay attention to the story and the characters, and it was an okay story. The plot line was very straightforward, and I liked the characters okay, but my biggest problem with the book was the ending. There was such an anticlimactic fight scene that it was over within a page. I was hoping for the same kind of action that the middle of the book seemed to have. There were battles, and sword fights, and was well written. But the ending, while the loose ends were tied up, just happened so quickly that I felt like nothing had happened. It used God as such a Deus Ex Machina that I just couldn't take it seriously.
Throughout the rest of the book, whenever the characters prayed, I understood it more. They were in dire situations, and were looking for protection. I am not a Christian myself, but the religious aspect of the book was least invasive in the middle of the book. But towards the end it started to take over the whole plot line, and things seemed to fall apart. Overall it was not a bad story, but the ending was so sub par compared to the rest that it completely ruined the book for me.

Mulan has grown up as a pariah in her village in Lithuania, a half-Asian girl who can shoot arrows better than any boy. When her father dies, she must take his place in the army of the local warlord to ensure that her mother is not kicked out of their house. Concealing her identity as a woman, she takes the name Mikolai and fights the Teutonic Knights who are pillaging nearby villages and farms.

Wolfgang wants to be a knight himself, but he's not going to get his chance in Hagenheim. He joins the forces fighting against the Teutonic Knights, only to find that his rebellious brother Steffan is on the other side of the conflict. When Mikolai the Lithuanian makes a fool of him at an archery contest, he is first angry but then grows a grudging respect and friendship for the boy. But when Mikolai is wounded and Mulan's secrets are revealed, will their friendship blossom into love? 

In this book, Melanie Dickerson goes to a great deal of trouble to depict Mulan as strong and feminine. As usual, she weaves a strong Christian element into the book as both main characters must learn to trust God's plan for their lives as revealed in the Bible. Considered as a historical fantasy, this works within the world the author has created. Considered as historical fiction, the treatment of medieval religious sensibilities feels anachronistic.

Wolfgang was an interesting character, wrestling with a childhood secret that impacts his relationship to his father and his brother. His concealment causes a canker to grow that he tries to atone for by his own perfect actions so he doesn't disappoint his father. Mulan, on the other hand, grew up with a harsh and unloving father, which impacts how she relates to God and makes her appreciate Wolfgang's loving family in Hagenheim all the more. I enjoyed this book in the Hagenheim series a good deal more that the previous installment on Aladdin, mostly because Wolfgang was a much stronger male lead than Aladdin was.

Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. All opinions in this review are my own.

I've read and enjoyed Melanie Dickerson before, and I like the story of Mulan, so I thought this would be right up my street. Sadly, it's not. It's passable, but not fantastic. Too many clumsy sentences and contrived happenings threw me out of the story. I was confused about the passage of time, too...I thought only a couple of days had passed, but there was Mulan thinking that she'd only known Wolfgang a couple of weeks.

This isn't a terrible book. It's a good adventure story. But it just isn't as good as I'd hoped for, and that hurts from this author.


Receiving an ARC did not affect my review in any way.

Another fantastic addition to some wonderfully reimagined fairy tales. The author does a beautiful job weaving the classic story of Mulan in a Lituanian world. It also gives us a look at two of the youngest members of the Duke of Hagenheims family.
Throughout each book another fairytale unfolds and one of the Dukes children is a central part. I enjoy seeing what happened to the older children now married and how we receive a glimpse of their furtures through these books.
As always it is a well done version of Mulan that captures the soul of a warrior. A must read for fans of romance, fairy tales, and Melanie Dickerson's stories.

This book was unfortunately very hard for me to get into. I love the legend of Mulan and Chinese culture so this being set in Europe was confusing.

I am a big fan of fairy tale retellings but this one just did not work for me. The dialogue was clunky and cumbersome, the christian overtones were a bit too much for me, and the romance was a little to PG for me. .I would try another book in this series but I think Mulan was probably a bad fit for medieval europe.

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

A Mulan retelling by one of my favorite authors? Um, yes please! I was elated to be able to review the next book in my favorite historical series.

Melanie Dickerson is a creative genius bringing to life Disney's Mulan in a new and exciting way that had me turning page after page and chapter after chapter until the very end.

Melanie's attention to detail truly brings this story to life just as in the rest of the Hagenheim series. If historical romances and fairytale retelling are your thing, then you should definitely pick up this book and all the other books in the series.

This book is highly recommended for ages 13+ for mild (non-gory) violence. There is absolutely no sexually explicit content or foul language.

The anticipation of reading this Hagenheim book (it's part of a series but each can be a stand alone) put this on the top of my TBR book pile. This book is about Mulan, with a dash of Joan of Arc, (Christianity, girl in an army & burning at the stake threads) with also a nod to Katniss i.e bow and arrows. Mulan is "adopted" in this story, and stands out due to her Asian heritage & exemplary bow and arrow skills. It follows the original as much as it can, but adds Wolfgang and Steffan, and her adopted mother to the mix. Full of action, this retelling is worth reading. If you've read Melanie Dickerson, she doesn't disappoint in this one! **Please note: I received a complimentary copy of this book from Thomas Nelson through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

How did no one think that the concept of plopping Mulan in the middle of Eastern Europe surrounded by white people wasn't weird?

There was no element of Chinese culture in this book — barely any mentions of Buddhism, her language, her traditions — nothing!!!! I get that this was set in Europe but this is <i>Mulan</i>. Why bother writing a "retelling" if her identity is just going to be erased? It felt more like a Christian book than a Mulan book to me, and apparently to many reviewers as well.

*I was provided an ARC through Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

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.

I enjoyed Mulan's spirit, as well as Wolfgang's character and their romance. Great book!

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

Alot of us know the story of Mulan and how she joined battle to defend her honor and kept a huge secret disguising herself as a man then she ends up falling for Captian Shang and she confesses the truth an lives happily ever after.

In The Warrior Maiden it took a whole new twist on the story of Mulan as we know it. Melanie Dickerson's take on this classic tale as part of the Hagenheim series was a lot of fun to read and I could not help but invest my time reading this story cover to cover just to find out what happens to Mulan and if she saves her mother in time.

We will definitely consider this title for our YFiction collection at our library. That is why we give this book 5 stars.

The Warrior Maiden review

Thank you so much to Netgalley for my copy of this book.
I am completely obsessed with fairytale retellings so that was a big factor in what drew me to this book.
I loved our main character I thought she was bad ass and really relatable.
The only thing I felt it lacked was a bit of intense romance it all felt so chaste and uncomfortable.
I also felt this book was trying too hard in a religious sense it was a bit in your face at times. I have nothing against a book having religious elements but in this case I felt it went a bit overboard.
Overall it was a good read but it took me a while to get through.

I'm going to keep this brief because I'm personally disappointed. Dickerson's writing was lovely as usual but I really had problems with the following;
- taking an Asian character and transplanting her, divorced from her culture, in Lithuanian. This may have been unintentional cultural erasure but I was wincing a lot. Hua Mulan is a poem written by a Song dynasty female poet that meditates on filial duty. I get that reimaginings change things but there is a line where it is not our story to alter. There are plenty of (lesser known) folk tales of European origin that treat with a female warrior bucking societal expectations that could have been drawn on instead of taking this important tale away from its Chinese roots.

- I hated the Christian over tones. I'm afraid this is grating on me more with each book. It was worse here because there is no way Mulan would have been Christian. And I feel that many of the other fairytales used in Dickersons books were not Christian originally or not modern Christianity so it's got to the point where it's plundering from other religions disrespectfully.

- The way the MC loses her agency and becomes submissive in her arc to a man. No. We have too many books like this. I know it's a fairytale and romance is implied but at this point it's more original to have a female MC in a fairytale retelling who insists on being recognised as an equal.

Honestly, I would have swallowed this more if it hadn't been marketed as Mulan retelling. I think there may be some people who love this, and good on them. But I was offended and I am not Asian by any stretch of the imagination. I really hope Dickerson doesn't start on Irish fairytales, is all I can say based on this.

The Warrior Maiden in the Hagenheim Series is a stand alone but worth it to read the previous novels to know more about the Hagenheim family. This is loosely based on the story of Mulan, which happens to be one of the main characters. She goes to battle to save her family's home but as we know she is disguised as a man. There she meets one of her fellow soldiers, Wofgang a member of the Hagenheim family. They develop a friendship while hiding her identity. Wofgang's brother Steffan is part of the story and can't wait to learn more about him and what he will do. Throughout the story, Mulan feels she is never good enough due to her relationship with her father. Although she is willing to do whatever it takes to save her family and friends. She is definitely a warrior through the whole story. While this is not my favorite one, I still enjoyed getting to know new characters. Melanie Dickerson is one of my go to authors with clean content and twist on your favorite fairy tale. 3.5 stars.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from Thomas Nelson through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

The Hagenheim series is, as I understand it, a collection of retold fairy tales set in medieval Europe. While Hua Mulan is broadly considered to be a fictional character (some people dispute this), it seems highly inappropriate to recreate this character (including her name and Asian ancestry) and plunk her down in Lithuania. Erasing an ethnic character's ethnic identity except for occasional exotic/othering references with little follow through or consideration is a form of whitewashing and it is, I feel, absolutely unacceptable. Dickerson should keep to Grimm fairy tales and not try to shove the folk heroes of other cultures into her distinctly white European fantasy mash-up.

I was pretty excited when I found out this was a retelling of Mulan, which was one of my favorite Disney characters. I didn't like it very much.- It just didn't sit right with me. An Asian girl, being plopped down in and Eastern European town. It was awkward and uncomfortable- that's pretty much how I felt the whole time I was reading it. The dialogue is awkward too and sometimes I felt bad for the characters.

I didn't like the Christian tones of the book, either. It felt like the book was trying too hard to be a "christian faith" novel. It didn't have to keep italicizing it's faith; It made the book to chaste, like you can't even give us a good heated kiss? It has to be super awkward.

The story of Mulan is surrounded by the Chinese culture, that I don't think meshes with the Eastern European culture. The Original Mulan is based of an ancient Chinese Ballad, and I would have like to see homage to the origin.

With all that being said,I am super excited to read other books in this series though, I want to see how the European filter works with other classics. I think the idea was great, but not with this particular fairy tale.

2.5/5

**I received an arc of this novel, in exchange for an honest review from the publisher, Thomas Nelson**

Melanie Dickerson is pretty popular for re-creating popular fairy tales and dropping the characters into Hageheim, her city in Germany. With her newest story, The Warrior Maiden, it is a Mulan re-make. While I have seen the Disney version, Dickerson did not follow that story line. She wrote something completely different. Not in a bad way. I actually really liked this version. Better than the Disney version.
Again, Dickerson takes a well-known Disney story and transforms it into a romantic recreation. I really don't know much about Mulan outside of the Disney version, but I enjoyed this one. Dickerson does a fabulous job at bringing Mulan to life with a back-story and the reasons why she joined the army to fight for what she believed in. She jumped off the page as a character.
In Dickerson's version, Wolfgang, the hero, realizes Mulan is a woman but he allows her to see her for who she really is and falls in love with her no matter what. The story is about sacrifice for the ones you love. Mulan sacrifices for her mother and Wolfgang while Wolfgang sacrifices for Mulan, her mother, and his brother Steffan.
The plot moves pretty quickly. I spent less than a day devouring the novel. I couldn't wait to see how the predictable ending would happen. Of course, it is a fairy tale, so it has to have a happy ending. Dickerson is wonderful at creating an ending to satisfy an romantic at heart. While the plot line was different than Disney, the romance felt predictable and pre-determined.
The spiritual element strength the characters. It did not interrupt the story or preach at the readers. Dickerson allowed it to flow naturally from each individual character. I enjoyed that.
Overall, The Maiden Warrior is a much stronger version of the Mulan story than the Disney version. I liked how heroic Mulan was and the back-story to her story. Dickerson invited me back to the setting I'm familiar with and kept me engrossed in the story. A must read for fans of Dickerson or any fairy tale story.
I received a complimentary copy of The Maiden Warrior by Melanie Dickerson from Thomas Nelson Publishing, but the opinions stated are all my own.

So I love, love, love these retellings and Mulan is one that I was obsessed with as a kid. Since I'm such a 'I can do what boys do' type of girl, this was the book for me. The only thing was I just couldn't get past some of the cheesiness. The dialogue wasn't always realistic and I rolled my eyes a few times at their constant chastity. I do appreciate a YA that can be appropriate for all ages, but even to be weird about a kiss, eh, that's not the reality for teens ha! But otherwise a cute read.

This is by far the worst Mulan adaptation I’ve ever read.

“The Warrior Maiden” sees Mulan desperate to escape the future laid out for her simply because she is a woman and hungry for a future filled with adventure and the chance to be something greater than a wife when war comes knocking and she takes her late fathers place in the army. With men’s clothes hiding her secret she sets off to prove her worth as a soldier but complications arise and she must work with the Duke’s son to end the war and save the people she loves.

Okay so I should start by saying when I received this arc I had no idea it was part of a larger world but I was happy to see that it’s separate fairy tales for each book so I would miss some references but overall it shouldn’t hinder my reading.

That being said I really would love to hear how the other books play out because this was not Mulan’s story at all. We hit some of the classic beats from the original but the rest is altered to fit the new narrative going as far as to sideline our supposed heroine for the climax. Also apart from her appearance there is zero influence of Asian culture which is such an important component when retelling this myth, though I realize this takes place somewhere else where a majority of the population is Polish and Lithuanian I still think that the culture needed to be included somehow.

There was a lot of religion thrown in here as well and again I’m not sure if that’s a staple of this series but wow I felt like I was in Sunday school daydreaming about a badass heroine in battle only to get snapped out of it by sermons. And I know to make a strong female character they shouldn’t be one dimensional but this reimagining of the infamous character leaned way too heavily into the romance side which lead directly to her being discarded for the final showdown in favor of the male lead and that’s never going to work for me.

This was a huge disappointment and all I could think about were the rumors of Hollywood taking these kinds of liberties with the plot and the character of Mulan herself and I couldn’t be more horrified if that came to be. If you’re looking for a retelling of this classic story look anywhere else and save yourself the trouble of whatever this was.

**special thanks to the publishers and netgalley for providing an arc in exchange for a fair and honest review**