The Sherwood Ring

Vaguely reminiscent of Barbara Michaels, this is a quite charming little ghost story – lacking the tragedy that usually haunts (ha!) the genre. The modern-day story is the weakest part of the book; one finds oneself wishing the ghosts made more appearances, as their history is by far more

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interesting.

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An excellent novel, with some fascinating looks at side corners of history and historiography, puzzles and suprises around every corner, and well-drawn characters, including some of the most *romantic* romantic leads I've ever met in a YA novel. Well-drawn applies to this edition's illustrations

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(by Evelyn Ness) as well, stylized but fascinating.

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A nice little ghost story that years ago wouldn't even have been called a fantasy, The Sherwood Ring brings together two young lovers using ghosts from Revolutionary New York to overcome their obstacles, the main obstacle being an uncle that may have done something horribly wrong. All the men are

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handsome and daring, the women pretty and rebellious, but the historical events are interesting and the result an amusing and sweet romance perfect for older intermediate readers.

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After Peggy Grahame is orphaned, she goes to live with her cantankerous old uncle in their even older family home in up state New York. He stays shut up in his study every day, so Peggy is free to explore the house and talk to ghosts. Each of them tells her another installment of the tale of her

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ancestor Nick Grahame's game of cat and mouse with loyalist Peaceable Sherwood. After numerous triumphs and reverses, they grow to respect each other, but they are still on opposite sides of the Revolutionary War. Peggy is fascinated by this tale, and wonders if it might provide some clue about why her uncle is unwilling to share his papers with a visiting British history student.

The characters in the past are fantastic, each more clever than the last. Peacable Sherwood is a delight, an eighteenth century Lord Peter Wimsey who says things like "Will you mind very much if I run myself into serious difficulties now and again after we are married, just for the pleasure of seeing you rise to the occasion?" I loved reading about how each outwitted the other, and the relationships between Peacable and the Grahames are wonderfully complicated. Peggy and her love interest are less enticing, mostly because their romance comes out of nowhere. They meet three times, each for about five minutes, never have a substantive conversation, and on their third meeting he says something along the lines of, "I'm telling you now that we're going to get married, so you'll have time to get used to the idea." What a fantastic idea! I mean, Peggy is seventeen, lost her father about a month ago, has interacted with him for about fifteen minutes total, and doesn't even know his full name, why wouldn't she want to marry him? Pat sweetens the deal by mentioning that he's an earl, but an impoverished one, so she'll spend her days darning his socks before the fire. No sane woman in the world would be able to withstand such coaxing! What people in the 1950s considered romance was wild, man.

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Compared to Pope's other book, The Perilous Gard, which is one of my absolute favorites, The Sherwood Ring isn't quite as gripping and compelling - it may be due to my own idiosyncrasies (I find Elizabethan England more interesting than Revolutionary America, and the fairy tale of Tam Lin more

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exciting than ghosts), but at the very least these are two very different books. The tone of the Sherwood Ring is necessarily different - it's told in the first person by Peggy Grahame, a contemporary girl who moves to her Uncle Enos's historical estate, Rest-and-be-thankful, in upstate New York upon the death of her father. Her uncle is a history fanatic and has preserved the estate so precisely and faithfully it's like stepping back in time - there aren't even any telephones.

Pope constructs a series of interweaving narratives as Peggy is visited by ghosts who tell her their stories - personal histories that are tied up with the history of the estate, the course of American History, and the present day events at Rest-and-be-thankful, including Peggy's own life and loves. The pacing is rather sedate, at least in Peggy's story - her role is mostly that of listener, and she's consistently passive (my only complaint). But the individual ghosts are colorful characters who transport you back in time to the American Revolution. One of Pope's greatest achievements here is to paint a full picture of the time period - the rebels aren't lionized, the British aren't demonized, so that the reader can enjoy interacting with real people instead of propaganda or symbols, individuals caught up in the sweep of history and larger than life events amongst which they must struggle in their bids for survival and happiness. There's a lot of exposition in the contemporary portion of the story, which can get a bit clunky, but the ghosts make up for it with more than enough action and adventure. Not as dear to my heart as The Perilous Gard, but still a great read.

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I loved The Perilous Gard, and was excited to discover this book at Powell's; however, I think I would have enjoyed it more as a young adult. The story is a little too neat and predictable, and the mystery is pretty silly. The story told by the ghosts was much more interesting than the modern

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story, and I wished Pope had written more about Peaceable and Barbara. The little prison, the treasure room, and the relief map in the sand were wonderful little details, and I feel like she could have written a much better story that would have satisfied adults as well.

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The Sherwood Ring was a fetching young adult fantasy/romance about a recently orphaned teen, Peggy, who goes to live with her uncle on the family’s ancestral estate. Her uncle, who is immersed in his obsession about Revolution-era history, ignores the young woman entirely; so she does some

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historical explorations of her own. She is aided by the ghosts of her ancestors who haunt the old mansion. With their help, she learns that history repeats itself and that she, too, can find happiness. The book is sweet, engaging, and well-written.

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A lovely story. A modern day woman goes to the "ancestral home" in upstate New York, to live with her Uncle. There are reportedly ghosts, and there is definitely a secret somewhere that causes Uncle Enos to act very strangely indeed. Peggy and her new friend Pat try to figure out what these dire

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secrets are. She is helped immeasurably by a series of ghosts that appear from time to time to tell her their stories of guerrilla warfare during the Revolution.

The story was short, fun, and tangled just enough to keep me turning the pages. I loved it, especially at the end when a number of threads come together most satisfactorily.

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A girl moves in to her eccentric uncle's home and becomes caught up in the story of four ghosts from the American Revolution. The stories of the ghosts were interesting; the narrator's story less so, and I was underthrilled by the modern love interest.

A young girl is sent to live in upstate New York with the uncle she never knew after her father’s death. Her uncle is hostile to outsiders, especially the young man who’s come to study the family’s Revolutionary War history. But she can talk to the ghosts from that era, and she learns their

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complicated secrets that reverberate into the present (the mid-twentieth century). Less interesting to me than The Perilous Gard.

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orphan girl befriended by family ghosts from Revolutionary times