Scarlet (The King Raven, Book 2)

by Stephen R. Lawhead

Paperback, 2008

Status

Available

Call number

813.54

Publication

Thomas Nelson (2008), Paperback, 464 pages

Description

Fantasy. Fiction. HTML: After losing everything he owns, forester Will Scarlet embarks on a search for none other than King Raven, whose exploits have already become legendary. After fulfilling his quest--and proving himself a skilled and loyal companion--Will joins the heroic archer and his men. Now, however, Will is in prison for a crime he did not commit. His sentence is death by hanging--unless he delivers King Raven and his band of cohorts. That, of course, he will never do. Scarlet continues Stephen R. Lawhead's riveting saga that began with the novel Hood, which relocated the legend of Robin Hood to the Welsh countryside and its dark forests. Lawhead's trilogy conjures up an ancient past and holds a mirror to contemporary realities..

User reviews

LibraryThing member cherryblossommj

Will Scarlet has always been my favorite Robin Hood character for as long as I can remember knowing different versions of the historical tales. This book does not change that at all. This is Will Scarlet in more depth than any book or film has ever shown him. Everything you ever once thought of him

or wanted to know is given in a wonderfully melodious tone by [author: Steven Lawhead] and your imagination can soar. I was thoroughly impressed by [book: Hood], but so much more by [book: Scarlet] yet in different ways. I recommend this book to anyone who loves celtic, Britons, old english, Robin Hood, medieval, knights, and chivalry... as well as just good old adventure. There is nothing "tasteless" in this novel as you find in many books these days... meaning there is moral delimma with characters that are just out right evil. But you do not find the protagonists as lust filled murders. It is just plain good stories twisted together to keep you up hours into the night reading until there is no more. So sad that I have to wait until 2009 for the Trilogy end [book: Tuck]... but I am fairly certain it will be worth it.Oh, and there are other Lawhead books that I've read that didn't "hook" me, but these King Raven Trilogy books are really to die for.

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LibraryThing member debs4jc

Will Scarlet is the main character of this second book in Lawhead's trilogy re-imagining the Robin Hood legend. As he relates his story while in prison to a priest named Odo, we learn how he was driven from his land by the French invadors and so came to search for Rhi Bran (Robin) and join his band

of resisters to the French and their hired overseers. Scarlet's tale is of course full of adventure, tomfoolery, and even romance and you will find all the familiar Robin Hood characters here but with slightly different names and in a different setting.
I liked the first book of the trilogy, Hood, more than this one, but this one was still really, really good. I particularly liked the romance between Scarlet and Noina and I just had to keep reading to see if they would ever finally get married.

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LibraryThing member DaddyPupcake

I wasn’t exactly thrilled that this book was told through the eyes of Will Scarlet at first, but as I got more into the book I thought that it was brilliant. A lot of action is in this book. I really liked the way that Will pokes fun at the priest during his telling of the story. Very fun read.

LibraryThing member richardsonmichelle

This book blew me away, and now I must patiently wait for the last in the series...not due out until next year!
This book was told in the perspective of a character newly introduced and at first, I couldn't get a handle on who was telling the story, but it worked out rather quickly. Another clever

device Lawhead uses is flashbacks. I know in some books this can be confusing but giving credit to Lawhead, he masters the technique and does not lose the reader in the process!
Whether you are a Lawhead fan, or just a fan of reading, this series is proving to be an excellent read!

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LibraryThing member cherryblossommj

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LibraryThing member amerigoUS

Lawhead surpasses himself with this follow-up to "Hood". In "Scarlet", forester William Scatlocke aka Will Scarlet joins the lawless band after his master, a Saxon thane, had his land confiscated by the crown. As Bran and his men, now including Will, continue to rob from the Norman rich to give to

the poor, they uncover a plot that they hope will see justice done for the dispossessed people of Elfael.

Told predominantly in the first person narrative of Will Scarlet, there is greater fullness and intimacy in Lawhead's prose writing. He captures the injustices and disorganization that ensue for many Britons after the Norman Conquest and that continue under his son, William Rufus, often with the help of Norman church ministers. This book delivers great characters, interesting plot, solid historical background, and an authentic voice in Will Scarlet. Highly recommended.

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LibraryThing member ashooles

I found Scarlet much more exciting than Hood. It had me engaged for a lot longer and it made a bit more sense to me. Out of the two so far, this is definitely my favourite. I look forward to reading Tuck.

LibraryThing member JeremyPreacher

Scarlet is at least an improvement over Hood. There are sympathetic characters and an actual plotline, even if it's near-hopelessly muddied by transitions between Scarlet-as-narrator and actual third-person-omniscient in two separate chunks of timeline.

Scarlet's verbal tics (calling people "fella"

and using "en't" for "isn't") come and go, never ceasing to be jarring or managing to sound like anything other than a folksy affectation in the mouth of the character. They are handy markers as to when he's narrating, though - or would be, if they didn't disappear all the time.

I also have a rough time getting excited about the whole two-popes/warring kings drama that drives the plot. It's far too distant to have any emotional impact, and it never really informs the actions of the villains except in the very big picture - all the pointless puppy-kicking that happens onstage is just to establish that they're Bad Guys.

There's no real resolution to anything other than the immediate crisis, either, which is not atypical for the middle book in the trilogy, but it doesn't really whet my appetite so much as dull my enthusiasm. And Lawhead's Christian focus, which was such a beautiful, fundamental part of the Pendragon Cycle, just comes off as forced, here.

(Also, I just wanna say, while I like the use of Welsh myths to foreshadow plot points in theory, he did it a hundred times more elegantly in Merlin, and WITH THE SAME STORY. Jeez, man, now you're just getting lazy.)

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LibraryThing member mephistia

This an awesome twist on history, and a great way of looking at both William the Conqueror and the Robin Hood myth. A must read.

LibraryThing member creighley

The saga of Robin Hood continues. This time it is told through the eyes of William Scarlet, a wanderer who has been made homeless as a result of the bloody uprising of the rich to over take lands.

LibraryThing member graspingforthewind

Lawhead’s Scarlet is the key protagonist of this novel. While in Hood, the story is told primarily from Rhi Bran’s perspective, here we have the story as told by Will, as he relates the occurrences to a priest named Odo. Three quarters of the novel is told in this way, with a few chapters

stepping outside of Will’s memories and into the minds and hearts of the villains, in order to give us a full and round story. The final quarter of the story is told in traditional first person style, as seen through Will’s eyes, because he is no longer in a position to relate his story to Odo. This way of telling us the story gives a picture of Will as a simple and loyal man, a talented archer, who loves a woman very deeply. In this, it seems it was Lawhead’s intention to give us a picture of a common man of the time shortly following the invasion of the Normans into England.

Full Review at Grasping for the Wind

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