6 May 2015

The Huntress of Thornbeck Forest (DNF Review)

The Huntress of Thornbeck Forest | Melanie Dickerson
Published by: Thomas Nelson, May 12th 2015
Genre: YA, Historical
Pages: 368
Format: Ebook
Source: Thomas Nelson Fiction, via Netgalley

"Swan Lake" meets Robin Hood when the beautiful daughter of a wealthy merchant by day becomes the region's most notorious poacher by night, and falls in love with the forester.

Jorgen is the forester for the wealthy margrave, and must find and capture the poacher who has been killing and stealing the margrave's game. When he meets the lovely and refined Odette at the festival and shares a connection during a dance, he has no idea she is the one who has been poaching the margrave's game.

Odette justifies her crime of poaching because she thinks the game is going to feed the poor, who are all but starving, both in the city and just outside its walls. But will the discovery of a local poaching ring reveal a terrible secret? Has the meat she thought she was providing for the poor actually been sold on the black market, profiting no one except the ring of black market sellers?

The one person Odette knows can help her could also find out her own secret and turn her over to the margrave, but she has no choice. Jorgen and Odette will band together to stop the dangerous poaching ring . . . and fall in love. But what will the margrave do when he discovers his forester is protecting a notorious poacher?




I thought I was going to love this. Coming off the back of Dark Triumph, I had a serious historical craving. I thought this would be a great book for me. It ... wasn't. It was much slower than I expected, even accounting for the usual slow historical build up. I kept waiting for something pivotal to happen, for the pace to pick up, but by 61% I realised it wasn't going to. It wasn't building up to anything after all. I was waiting for Jorgen to find out Odette was the poacher but after a while I got bored even of that. The romance was fine but a little flat and I didn't get attached to either main character. I thought they were nice, good people, but that was about it. The plot was barely there. The historical period I actually enjoyed - I liked that it was set in Germany, and it was written so accurately it felt true. I liked the weaving in of German words. 

But the story and characters and pacing really let this book down. I lost the desire to finish it, and so didn't.

DNF at 61%

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