I read this one in a hurry and didn’t have much time to get into it (with publish date deadline). I will more than likely revisit this as I love Croucher’s previous works.

4 stars

Not For the Faint of Heart had some hilarious banter, and some good RomCom vibes following the granddaughter of Robin Hood and the merry men. It was cosy in a way, and fast-paced albeit with a slow start. However I felt this could have been longer, and there were some modern references throughout that threw me off a little.

With found family and grumpy sunshine tropes, I loved the banter and dynamic between Clem and Mariel. It also unexpectedly ripped my heart right out of my chest! I am really looking forward to reading more from this author.

Thank you to NetGalley and the author for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Lex Croucher is a smash hit with my students who all fell in love with Gwen and Art are Not in Love. This new story, inspired by Robin Hood, use the same formula to ensure another smash hit for Lex.

One thing I love is a good fantasy I love a book that can make me forget what's going on in the world and go into an imaginative world where the impossible happens and you meet characters and creatures you would never meet for real and this book had ot all

This was the fun, rag tag band of misfits I needed. What an excellent ride this was. I loved the characters and I want to prance through the forest with them.
The adorable queer romance was cute and I loved how much representation there was.
Such a fun adventure with great humour throughout.
What truly made this book for me was the found family. It came up time and again for different characters in different ways and it was just perfect.

NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART is another romp through a vaguely medieval world that takes a classic British legend and goes "what happens afterwards?"

This is Robin Hood inspired, but, like GWEN AND ART ARE NOT IN LOVE, isn't about Robin Hood et al but their descendants. Now the Merry Men aren't stealing from the rich and giving to the poor and they're not all men. I am enjoying how these books riff of the legends, using the freedom of being after to not worry about what parts of the legend to follow and which to ignore.

I do appreciate that Lex Croucher puts a "this is not in anyway meant to be even vaguely historically accurate" note at the start. It's more a vaguely medieval vibes book, picking and choosing whatever the author felt like from all over history. That warning helps set expectations for what the book is and isn't.

Clem was so much fun as a character. She's perpetually cheerful even in the middle of being kidnapped and the various disasters the band of outlaws find themselves in. It's such a nice character archetype and immediately made me like her. Plus it was very funny how much her constant positivity (and chattiness) rubbed Mariel up the wrong way. It was such a stark contrast to Mariel's grumpiness that it creates a great dynamic between them (optimism breaking down walls.)

In all, a very fun read - and I hope we get another YA from Lex Croucher in the not too distant future.

I did not finish this one. I e read other books by this author but somehow couldn’t get into this even though it seems a fun light hearted read and had some original and engaging characters. I’m giving it 3 stars as I think there are strengths here but I’m probably an unreliable reviewer to base purchases (or not) on,

An enjoyable historical romp, which maintained its lighthearted humour even when dealing with hard topics.

Clem is the highly skilled assistant to the local healer, if she does say so herself. She’s forever investigating new ways to treat injuries and diseases, and she doesn’t hold with any of that blood letting nonsense. She’s most surprised one day to come home and find she’s being abducted by Robin Hood’s Merry Men - now under new ownership - however it’s all a bit of a lark, right? …right?
Facing mortal peril, possible Stockholm syndrome, and eventually just deciding that she thinks she quite likes her kidnappers, Clem finds herself more and more embroiled with the Merry Men and one particular Captain, the beautiful and severe Mariel. And after all, there’s plenty of healing to be done around here!

I loved Clem as a character immediately.
She takes everything in her stride and brings a certain humour to situations, as well as seeking out the good in people. She’s sworn to heal anyone who needs her aid, and that’s what she’s going to do goshdarnit.
The small group of Merry Men we spend most of our time with are equally fabulous. I’m a sucker for a found family and this one is wonderful, so I was very pleased.

The plot felt well paced and the world richly imagined. Underground isn’t somewhere I usually like to be, but I would make an exception for the inn built into the roots under Sherwood Forest.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed Not for the Faint of Heart and would absolutely recommend it for anyone looking for a lighthearted read which isn’t lacking in stakes or adventure!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

I think I preferred this novel to Gwen and Art Are Not In Love - Mariel and Clem are great characters and I loved the twist on the Robin Hood tale, plus great found family. I liked that it didn't shy away from the darker elements of the plot and that everything wasn't completely neatly tied up in a bow at the end.

Lex Croucher is really incredible at writing complex relationships, and this really shines here. This story has a deep emotionality and explores morality and philosophy in a way that is clear but intelligent. I really liked the diversity of the characters and the whimsy of the setting, it all came together well. I think I preferred this to Gwen & Art, as it felt more mature and gritty, which I didn’t expect.

I really enjoyed Gwen and Art Are Not In Love, so I was keen to see what the author would do with a Robin Hood-inspired YA. I came for the humour, the queer found family, and hopes of derring-do, and it more than met my expectations. While Croucher's books always have heart, I wasn't quite prepared for how much I would fall for all of the characters. I found it a little slow to get going, but once I was in, I raced along, and was so sad when it came to an end. And I will never look at squirrels in quite the same way again.

Sherwood: The Next Generation

Years have passed since the heyday of Robin Hood and his Merry Men, and Robin’s granddaughter Mariel is finding it hard to make her own name in the forest. It doesn’t help that her own father is now leading the bandits, and doesn’t exactly believe in her abilities. She’s sent on a simple mission to kidnap a local healer who has been helping the wrong sort of people, and ends up instead bringing back her overly cheery assistant, Clem. Clem just wants to help anybody, and she ends up healing Mariel and her little found-family crew, in more ways than one.

This is a delightful YA sapphic romance, a rather fluffy version of an enemies to lovers tale between Mariel and Clem. They are never really enemies as such, but most people will agree that a forcible abduction is not exactly a great start for a relationship. It would also be fair to say there are a number of recognisable tropes at play here, as Mariel is grumpy and emotionally distant, and Clem is a little ray of sunshine filtering through the Sherwood trees. At one point, there is only one bed (and indeed, only one horse). You can see where things are going, but the journey is so delightful that you do not mind at all.

It is not a tale without peril, so I would hesitate at calling this “cosy”. Parents frequently disappoint. People get injured. People die. Generally though, the tone is quite light, and Clem’s deadpan sense of humour at the situation she finds herself in helps keep things from getting bleak, despite some heavy topics. There is a lot of different queer representation throughout, and in this fantasy world no-one discriminates on that basis which is refreshing.

I have not yet read Lex Croucher's other historical romance, Gwen & Art Are Not in Love, but on the basis of this book, it has moved significantly higher up my TBR list. Recommended!

i loved the other lex croucher's i've read, thought they were fun!!! but this moved soooooo slowly, i sort of felt bored to tears. might come back and give it another shot, or try it in audiobook form, but struggled to get through it.

I loved reading this one! I went in blind and I was happily surprised! Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book.

I loved Gwen and art, and this book really matched up to it! The relationship was so great, and the world felt just as in depth

As someone who specialised in medieval and children’s literature for my undergrad, now is officially my time to shine. I’ve decided.

Mariel is a Captain of the Merry Men, granddaughter of Robin Hood, and desperate to prove herself. Clem is a healer, experimenting with new cures that don’t involve leeches. When their worlds collide - namely, when Mariel kidnaps Clem in the place of her guardian for treating one of the Sheriff of Nottingham’s men - it might be Mariel’s chance to prove that she’s as capable as everyone expects. Until, of course, her father - and the Merry Men’s Commander - is captured…

In much the same way as other legendary figures, Robin Hood works best as the basis for adaption: we use these figures as a cultural touchstone through which we analyse our own contemporary situations. Much like any mythological pantheon, there isn’t a set canon of Robin Hood tales (there are the most famous, such as the archery contest, which are likely to be recognised within wider culture), and as such it is through the basic characterisation of Robin and the Merry Men that new tales are created and tweaked into newly reimagined contexts. Speedy scholarly argument out of the way, this is precisely what Lex Croucher does with NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART and, quite frankly, the end result is bonkers.

In the beginning, Mariel and Clem are very much foils, purely because the juxtaposition between them is so much more dramatic when they’re stuck together; the brooding and serious Mariel can’t be any more different to Clem, who is still chirpy and wisecracking even when she’s in the middle of being kidnapped:

“I mean - hi, I’m Clemence by the way, I’ve been kidnapped - why would it have taken months to find him? Isn’t freeing people from the Sheriff’s oppressive regime basically your whole thing?” (209)

Lots of people have managed to skew the definition of ‘romcom’ as anything which contains a romance as its macro plot, but NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART conforms to the actual definition by being genuinely funny, both in tone and narrative events, and mixes modern lexis and ideas into the medieval in such a way that both aspects are still compelling. The teenage characters all speak like teenagers - something which sometimes gets lost with adults writing for young people - and it’s great to see a range of ages of these teenagers, instead of them all being on the cusp of adulthood or freshly eighteen: the ages of Mariel’s platoon range between fourteen and around eighteen, meaning that there’s a wider teenage experience being displayed as opposed to the singular version most commonly highlighted on bookshop shelves. This particular platoon makes up a surprisingly cohesive little gang, a difficult aspect to achieve when working with ensemble casts, and each of them brings their own humour and drama to the plot as they go along.

As someone who studied both medieval and children’s literature at university, it’s also excellent to see how Croucher uses the medieval as a springboard to not only make references to older works without them being overbearing - for instance, the noticeable Norman-French surname of the Sheriff of Nottingham - but to introduce diversity, utilising key historical detailing to fight back against those who claim that medieval England was an entirely white and Christian homogenous society, up until the late Victorian period. England has always been trading with other countries (we were famed for our wool trade for centuries), and particularly with the character of Kit, whose family emigrated from Japan to England and are currently living in the urban hub of London, this is a historically-accurate nod to just how diverse England was at this period - though not remotely close to the multicultural nation we live in today, even Chaucer noted the sheer difference in the inhabitants of the capital at the time, and so it’s both a smart and welcome decision from Croucher to include these details. Children reading a medieval romcom deserve to imagine themselves romping around Sherwood Forest with the Merry Men - part of the widespread appeal of Robin Hood mythology throughout children’s books - and without taking a colourblind approach, Croucher demonstrates the real precedent for medieval demographics at work during this period. After all, if everyone else could schlepp across the world to fight in the Crusades, or Sir John Mandeville could fill up his entire BOOK OF MARVELS AND TRAVELS with his explorations of the world outside Britain, why can’t the reverse be true?

Mariel in particular is such a compellingly constructed character throughout, especially in her inner insecurity vs her outward tough exterior: alongside her desperation to prove herself to her father, creating a macro theme of living up to family legacy that runs throughout the novel, her relationship with her mother is also a really knotty interpersonal relationship for the narrative to dig into, and I’m glad it dedicates time to doing this. While she may be a Captain of the Merry Men she’s also a teenager desperate for her father’s approval and angry at her mother’s abandonment, placing her as a nicely rendered three-dimensional In a similar vein, Clem’s dedication to her personal values is such an excellent complementary theme - someone who will do anything to achieve her goals vs someone who knows precisely what they won’t do due to their own personal creed - and while she makes such a brilliant comic relief character, it’s equally so much fun to see her come out of this role and assert herself more in the final third. The romance is similarly really sweet as it develops, with both Mariel and Clem coming into their own as their relationship moves: in Mariel’s case, this is her coming out of her shell, versus Clem’s joining with the company and beginning to become an actual member of the Merry Men as opposed to their hostage.

Complete with fight scenes rendered on the verge of being cinematic and a healthy dose of medieval whimsy, NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART earns the descriptor of ‘romp’ as it rampages into the YA market: with a copy of GWEN AND ART ARE NOT IN LOVE sat on my shelf behind me, not to mention the announcement of Croucher’s upcoming dark academia fantasy from Gollancz, I’m curious to see which period they’ll tackle next. In terms of critique, I suppose that the only one I can think of is that there was no riff on the classic Basil-Rathbone-and-Errol-Flynn-fencing-on-the-staircase scene, but I suppose that’s a ‘me personally’ sort of situation.

*NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART was released by Bloomsbury Children’s Books on the 15th of August, 2024: remember to support your brick-and-mortar bookshops, particularly indies! Thank you to Bloomsbury Children’s for an eArc in exchange for an honest review.

This was such a fun book I really loved it. I really want to read every Lex novel bc the ones I've read so far are fantastic and this was no different

Clem is minding her own business one day when a group of Merry Men kidnap her as retaliation for her guardian healing one of the Sheriff of Nottingham’s men. It’s part of Mariel’s plan to impress the Commander of the Merry Men; her father. That plan goes to hell when an ambush leads to her father and several other high-ranking Merry Men being kidnapped.

If Mariel can bring her father back, no one can argue that she isn’t worthy. Clem ends up along for the ride, first as their captive and then as their healer, growing fond of the group through her commitment to keeping them alive. Mariel can’t argue that Clem’s skills are useful, she only wishes she wasn’t so annoyingly cheerful as she helped them.

As the group gets closer to finding where the Commander is being held, hard truths emerge as plans go awry.

Not for the Faint of Heart by Lex Croucher retells the Robin Hood myth through the grandchildren of the legendary characters. I liked how Croucher continued the legend and made it their own, as they did with the King Arthur mythos in Gwen and Art Are Not In Love. The characters were interesting, and I especially enjoyed seeing a healer as a main character. While I grew fond of them, I felt that the overall plot of this one let it down.

The focus is consistently on Mariel impressing her father, and while we learn about the lives of the Merry Men, it feels like a very brief glance. While this was a fun read, I was disappointed that it didn’t live up to my expectations.

I really enjoyed this book! I I applied for the ARC after reading Gwen & Art by Lex a few months earlier, and did not regret it. Lex has a fantastic ability to write believable characters that grow and evolve at just the right pace, and their interactions with one another always work wonders on my heart. While this book did have some heavy themes, it’s lightheartedness was unmistakable and I thoroughly enjoyed the universe Lex built here.

From the book "Mariel, a newly blooded captain of the Merry Men, is desperate to live up to the legacy of her grandfather, the legendary Robin Hood. Clem, a backwoods assistant healer known for her new-fangled cures, just wants to help people".

The story is centred around a healer, called Clem is kidnapped by young and inexperienced group of Merry Men and Mariel, leader of group and the granddaughter of Robin Hood. The reader follows them as they prepare to fight for their lives in the war for the woods and the romance that develops between the two.

A enjoyable read and recommended read as the nights close in.