Lady Thief. A.C. Gaughen. 2014. Walker Books. 304 pages. [Source: Review copy]
I wanted to reread Scarlet and Lady Thief in anticipation of the release of the third book, Lion Heart, this May. I read Scarlet and Lady Thief last spring and for the most part LOVED them. Particularly
Lady Thief.
The heroine of Lady Thief is Marian (aka Scarlet). She's still very much in love with Robin Hood, but, she's been tempted with an offer almost too good to refuse. Her (abusive) husband will annul their marriage and let her go, if and only if, she plays the role of his wife while Prince John and his wife Isabel visit Nottingham. (A new sheriff needs to be appointed.) Also traveling with the royal family: Eleanor of Aquitaine, the queen mother. There's definite risk involved. But the idea of being free from him forever and ever and getting to have a happily ever after ending with her one true love blinds her for a bit. She agrees. What follows is a LOT of drama and angst and heartbreak. It's exciting and intense and emotional.
I love this adaptation of Robin Hood, a young Robin Hood. I love most all the characters. Robin Hood. John Little. Scarlet/Marian. Much. Tuck. And a few new characters as well: particularly Alan a Dale, Winchester, and Eleanor of Aquitaine. It's oh so easy to hate Prince John and Guy Gisbourne.
It's easy to recommend this series. I am eager to read the third book!
© 2015 Becky Laney of
Becky's Book Reviews
Dark Triumph (His Fair Assassin #2) Robin LaFevers. 2013. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 387 pages. [Source: Review copy]
I first read and reviewed Dark Triumph in
March 2013. Dark Triumph isn't a book that one necessarily ENJOYS. It's a dark, exposing-ugly-sins historical novel in Robin LaFevers' His Fair Assassin series. (
Grave Mercy, which I also recently reread, is the first in the series.)
Both books are dark. Though reading Dark Triumph makes Grave Mercy appear to be light and fluffy. Both books star assassin nuns. Young women trained at a convent who serve Death as a master, who carry out their master's orders, who kill in other words.
Sybella is the heroine in Dark Triumph. Her story is dark, ugly, desperate. She's a strong heroine. She doesn't hold onto hope so much as vengeance. Her will to live comes from a desire--a need--to kill those that have harmed her. The people that have hurt her most are her very own family: her father and brothers. (Readers learn of the events that led her to the convent.) Her father is
Lord D'Albret. (A few details are historically accurate--the names of two of his daughters, Charlotte and Louise, for example, but almost everything is fictional. One should not take LaFevers' depiction as fact.)
Dark as it was, as ugly as it was, I enjoyed Sybella as a character. Her story was beautifully told. I especially loved the romance. I loved, loved, loved "The Beast" of Waroch. Their romance was not typical, it was unique and strong and tender and oh-so-right.
© 2014 Becky Laney of
Becky's Book Reviews
