In a Dark Wood
Grade 9 Up?Geoffrey, Sheriff of Nottingham, is informed by the king's steward that a local highwayman must be eliminated. This outlaw, Robin Hood, is only a minor nuisance to Geoffrey. The sheriff is much more concerned about his strained relationship with his wife; his affair with the Abbess; his anger at the mimicking Fool; his confusion over his feelings for his young squire, Hugh; and his desire to appear strong and courageous to the people he leads. First tricked, then captured, and later rescued by Robin Hood and his band, the man learns that courage is more than torturing a miscreant and that love is more than lust. At the end of the novel, he is able to accept the mocking of the mute Fool for the apt criticism that it is, and publicly declare that courage is not necessarily physically winning. The medieval setting is clearly and accurately realized. There is no softening of the explicitness of the sexual encounters and it takes a strong stomach to read the sections of the torture and subsequent hanging of a declared thief. The sections in which Hugh grapples with his feelings for Geoffrey, and in which Hugh fights Robin Hood to defend Geoffrey's honor make this book accessible to young adults. However, the frank portrayal of adult sexual desire make this a difficult book to offer to teens. Because it is Geoffrey's story, and not Hugh's, it is an adult novel that includes a sympathetic teenage character.?Wendy D. Caldiero, New York Public LibraryCopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.