Dina L. Sleiman’s Dauntless

Where Legend and History Collide,
One Young Woman Will Fight for the Innocent

Born a baron’s daughter, Lady Merry Ellison is now an enemy of the throne after her father’s failed assassination attempt upon the king. Bold and uniquely skilled, she is willing to go to any lengths to protect the orphaned children of her former village–a group that becomes known as “The Ghosts of Farthingale Forest.” Merry finds her charge more difficult as their growing notoriety brings increasing trouble their way.

Timothy Grey, ninth child of the Baron of Greyham, longs to perform some feat so legendary that he will rise from obscurity and earn a title of his own. When the Ghosts of Farthingale Forest are spotted in Wyndeshire, where he serves as assistant to the local earl, he might have found his chance. But when he comes face-to-face with the leader of the thieves, he’s forced to reexamine everything he’s known.

Review

When I first heard of this book, I knew I wanted to read it because, hello, Robin Hood. I adore Disney’s Robin Hood, even if he is a legit fox. I mean, come on, that charisma. So, naturally, I thought a female version of Robin Hood would be good. But, then I began to hear rumors of love triangles and so I put off reading this book for a while. My thoughts:

What I liked:

Merry captures the essence of Robin Hood. There are certain qualities that Merry doesn’t have that Robin had, like the aforementioned charisma. But mostly because she does not, on purpose, interact with people outside of her merry little band. That said, Merry is like Robin in the sense that they both come from privileged backgrounds that were unjustly torn from them, they both care deeply about those they work with, and they steal to help others out. I was not disappointed on this count.

The band of thieves. I love that the author was able to pull out such personality from each of the secondary characters. There’s quite a few of them, and yet I was not confused when any one of them was talking. In fact, I still feel as though I could sit down and tell you a bit about them individually (some more than others).

Engaging. I found the story to be thoroughly engaging. I wanted to know what would happen next and read the book faster than I had anticipated.

Spiritually, the novel portrays two things: that God knows your heart and the power of prayer. The latter is pretty self-explanatory, but with the first, all I kept hearing was that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. But, I think it is hard to reconcile the fact that in the end, Merry’s group is a group of thieves and the Bible says do not steal. The author did a good job of trying to bring those two facets together.

What I didn’t like:

The dreaded love triangle. I’ve read enough love triangles that I was able to pick out the “guy” who would win and Merry did a better job than most heroines by not trying to plow two fields. But, I still didn’t like that pull and push towards two different, but very good men. Not only do I feel like its, generally speaking, unrealistic, someone always loses in the end while patiently waiting for the girl to make up her mind. I mean, just think ladies, wouldn’t you hate it if a man waffled between you and some other girl?

Also, the end felt like a bit of a run around.

Romantic Scale: 7

Overall, this book was very cute and I very much enjoyed it!

** I received a copy of this book from BethanyHouse. My opinion was not affected in anyway.**