What did I think of...
Huntress of Thornbeck Forest by Melanie Dickerson
Description:
"Swan Lake" meets Robin Hood when the beautiful daughter of a wealthy merchant by day becomes the region's most notorious poacher by night, and falls in love with the forester.
Jorgen is the forester for the wealthy margrave, and must find and capture the poacher who has been killing and stealing the margrave's game. When he meets the lovely and refined Odette at the festival and shares a connection during a dance, he has no idea she is the one who has been poaching the margrave's game.
Odette justifies her crime of poaching because she thinks the game is going to feed the poor, who are all but starving, both in the city and just outside its walls. But will the discovery of a local poaching ring reveal a terrible secret? Has the meat she thought she was providing for the poor actually been sold on the black market, profiting no one except the ring of black market sellers?
The one person Odette knows can help her could also find out her own secret and turn her over to the margrave, but she has no choice. Jorgen and Odette will band together to stop the dangerous poaching ring . . . and fall in love. But what will the margrave do when he discovers his forester is protecting a notorious poacher?
Jorgen is the forester for the wealthy margrave, and must find and capture the poacher who has been killing and stealing the margrave's game. When he meets the lovely and refined Odette at the festival and shares a connection during a dance, he has no idea she is the one who has been poaching the margrave's game.
Odette justifies her crime of poaching because she thinks the game is going to feed the poor, who are all but starving, both in the city and just outside its walls. But will the discovery of a local poaching ring reveal a terrible secret? Has the meat she thought she was providing for the poor actually been sold on the black market, profiting no one except the ring of black market sellers?
The one person Odette knows can help her could also find out her own secret and turn her over to the margrave, but she has no choice. Jorgen and Odette will band together to stop the dangerous poaching ring . . . and fall in love. But what will the margrave do when he discovers his forester is protecting a notorious poacher?
Genre: Hic-fic, Romance, Fairy Tale Retellings, Christian Fiction
Series: Medieval Fairy Tale Romance
Published on: May 12th, 2015
Pages: 320 pages
Format: Digital ebook -Kindle
Source: NetGalley
Average rating: 4.03 stars
My rating: 4 stars
I've read every single one of Melanie Dickerson's works (at least I think so), and even though I don't always agree with the ways of the time period she writes (my feminism was screaming at me the entire book), and I don't like reading Christian Fiction, I've always enjoyed the stories she spins, and her writing never fails to capture one's attention.
Melanie Dickerson retells Fairy Tells in such a realistic and rustic way, that you can't help but be captivated. I never read Christian Fiction, and a Historical Fiction book is a rarity to see on my shelves, but Melanie Dickerson never fails to disappoint on neither her stories, her characters or her writing!
There's a reason Dickerson continues to be one of the most preferred voices in retellings, and her books, well-placed in their time period, each offer a both unique and historically accurate glimpse of a time undiscovered by her intended audience. Challenges woven throughout the piece force deeper thought and introspection through subtle weaving rather than italicized prayers. Dickerson has found a strong audience with her young adults, but are equally gobbled up by adults.
The Huntress of Thornbeck Forest was a somewhat more mature read that allows itself to unwind slowly, and ponderously, focusing on different, yet equitable strengths of a remarkable young woman, consumed by the need to help the poor, and a very loyal and honorable male lead that I just gobbled up!
Medieval romance with cross-dressing heroines is Kat catnip, as a tale that praises the virtues of women outside of their traditional roles at the time. Dickerson plays to her greatest strengths in this novel, and results in a well-realized tapestry of a world so extraordinarily different from our own, yet contemporary in its questions of faith, identity and finding God outside human expectation.
This read, while well outside my usual preference, had me absolutely captivated from the beginning.
XOXO,
Kat
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