What if Maid Marian was the real outlaw?

Three years after her beloved uncle, King Richard, and best friend, Robin of Locksley went to war, and Maid Marian went to Paris for schooling, Marian is back. The war is over and her uncle promised her a spot on his council. But she is greeted at the docks by the Sherriff of Nottingham who informs her that King Richard is dead, Robin is a wanted man and Richard’s weak-willed brother is on the throne.

The kingdom isn’t in better shape as the villagers are destitute from the high taxes while King John feasts, naps and is advised by the sneaky Sir Hiss. Not on Marian’s watch. She may be relegated to her room thanks to Sir Hiss but that’s not going to stop her from aiding her beloved England.

This was a cute albeit predictable story where Maid Marian takes the reins of the Merry Men but not in the way you think. The subtitle is misleading as she doesn’t really live in the forest, shooting arrows with other fugitives.

Rather Mancusi takes a more realistic approach where Marian uses the castle’s secret entrances, and King John underestimating her because she’s a noble lady to sneak out and give stolen riches to the poor under the cover of night. In fact, it’s so realistic, that I nearly forgot they were all animals despite her mentioning it on every page.

Like Mancusi’s other Twisted Tales, she has a romance between Robin and Marian that plays out like a good regency romance. They are childhood friends who haven’t forgotten their promise to remember each other after the war. The spark is still there but Robin is haunted by his failure to save the King, and he doesn’t want to bring her into more danger. He doesn’t want to bring any of his merry men into danger so they’re content to stick it out in Sherwood Forest so the Sheriff won’t retaliate against their families.

It’s a reasonable switch that highlights Robin’s care for his friends and sense of duty while giving the more optimistic and headstrong Marian to strike out on her own to help the poor. She has less to lose than the men so she and the delightful nursemaid, Lady Kluck are able to practice their “badminton” (sword training) and filch from the royal coffers.

Unfortunately, Marian’s arc is rather static as she doesn’t have any flaws to overcome or big obstacles. It doesn’t help that beyond a few twists like the mystery of what really happened the night King Richard died, it plays pretty straight to the movie with Lady Kluck and Marian taking on the roles of Little John and Robin in the royal carriage robbery scene, and the archery contest. Like I wrote in the Conceal, Don’t Feel review, I looked forward to these tales as wild new takes on the source, complete AUs.

This lack of depth to Marian or deviation to the story may also be due to the page time shared between Robin, the Sheriff, King John, Skippy and Tagalong’s POV that made this more of an ensemble novel compared to the other Twisted Tales.

In fact the whole plot is pretty close to Braswell’s take on the Robin Hood story in the Twisted Tales anthology so it feels really uninspired and considering Mancusi’s previous work, I had high expectations for this one too. So it’s a nice twist but not memorable as others.

3 bows and arrows.