...SPOILERS...
To
my utter delight, I found this sequel to be even better than the original. The
basic premise was already promising; a story retelling Robin Hood, only with
the mysterious Will Scarlet as the narrator. And more importantly, Scarlet was
gender-bent to be a female in this tale.
In this novel, there was major character development, with the narrator
becoming much more attuned to the other characters. Less selfishness and more
consideration on her part simply made her more likeable. One particularly nice
detail was that the man who had been the villain in the previous book was
developed better in this one. Instead of being a one-dimensional, vicious man,
he became multifaceted, showing occasional kindness to Scarlet. This made him more interesting to
read about, and also more realistic. I did, however, cringe a bit at the
forcefulness of the story. Gaughen did not hold back with the plot, unleashing
every ugly detail. Instead of softening edges and having magical rescue scenes,
she allowed her characters to suffer and be heavily injured. Also, she
maintained a fairly reasonable rate of healing time throughout her story, as
opposed to giving a broken leg one day and fixing it the next. For instance,
Scarlet was captured by the villain, who chopped two fingers off. There was no
saving her at the last minute, or a fantastic escape from the ropes binding
her. Her fingers were sliced off, and she felt the pain of them for weeks to
come. This type of gore and brutality wasn't necessarily described, but it would be referred to subtlety and brought back up. While my stomach rolled a bit at the messiness, I could also appreciate
Gaughen’s relatively realistic interpretation of the tale.
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