Blair Hodgkinson’s Reviews > The Scarlet Forest: A Tale of Robin Hood > Status Update

Some interesting and entertaining story choices here, not least to place Robin's exploits in the reign of Henry III. I'm enjoying the author's development of some of the ballad stories.

There is an interesting synthesis of ballad-inspired stories with original ideas at work here. It keeps the story fresh.

Footnotes are something only a few novels I can think of succeed at. Most often they are distracting and take the reader out of the narrative of the story. There have only been two in this novel so far, so I reserve judgement for now.

This book feels so far like an heir to the classics of Howard Pyle and J. Walker McSpadden, which first lured me into interest in Robin Hood in the first place. But, I could do without the "thees" and "thous". Antiquated language sometimes can be distracting from a story for modern readers.