BY OLIVIA EBERSOLE (’16)

A.C. Gaughen puts a twist on the classic tale of Robin Hood and his band of merry man in her books “Scarlet”, “Lady Thief” and “”Lion Heart.”  The famous Will Scarlet is no young lad but instead a young women.

The first novel, “Scarlet” begins her tale in which she helps Robin Hood steal from the rich and feed the poor.  A new nobleman comes to town and suddenly Scarlet’s life begins to unravel as her past comes to haunt her.  She is no poor girl but a runaway noble woman.  The novel had romance, suspense and amazing character development.  One thing I loved in the novel was that while there were “good” guys and “bad” guys it was not black and white, everyone had a back story and it was very interesting to understand everyones reasoning for how they acted.  It made the novel seem more realistic.  Scarlet herself developed into a stronger women who fought for others.

The second novel, “Lady Thief”, I expected to be a bit of a drag with less action but it kept be entertained so much that I devoured it in one sitting.  Keeping true to all the character’s personalities Gaughen continued her story flawlessly.  The romance between Scarlet and Robin developed like a real life relationship and you fell in love along with them.  This books covers real life topics like sexual harassment and inequality. The writing also covered this time period perfectly and really showed what it would be like to live as a women in the late 13th century. The end of the novel left readers with a cliffhanger and the feeling of loss as a main character was murdered.

The last and final book, “Lion Heart”, started off great with action just a few pages in and continued right where it left off in the last book.  Scarlet develops even more in this novel learning to accept her nobility and the thief within her. I devoured this book in hours and was so very invested in it that by the time I got to the end I felt cheated. It ends on a cliffhanger in which there are many loose ends that go unsolved and are up for the readers interpretation. While some readers may love this I was devastated and even looked up to see if there was  another book coming out. Other than the disappointing ending I loved the book as I felt I could relate to the young women who was still trying to find her place in the world. There was the perfect blend of action, suspense, romance and character development which caused the books to all become fast, fun reads while still touching on real life issues.