Shadow Of The Wolf by Tim Hall
When Tim Hall says to forget everything you know about Robin Hood. And then throws in a typical, ‘The truth is much darker…’, spooky type thing, which would usually be used for added suspense and all that jazz, and often the truth wouldn’t end up really dark or even a little bit dark at all for that matter. It would just be a way to grab people’s attention and keep them hooked. But if what Hall’s let’s say version of Robin Hood is true, boy he wasn’t kidding when he said it was dark. The ‘Shadow Of The Wolf’ starts off pretty much the same as almost every other well known version of Robin Hood, except unlike a few, it doesn’t start straight off in his glory days(if he even has any in this version of Robin Hood!).
Unbeknown to Robin he’s not a biological descendant of the people he comes to know as his parents and family, until years after he’s been abandoned by his ‘Foster Father’ in the Wildwoods. For years Robin has survived in the Wildwoods foraging and hunting to survive, waiting for the day his ‘Father’ will come back for him. Obviously with no one but his thoughts for company, Robin is getting maybe just a little bit lonely, but, when Robin’s food starts disappearing from his makeshift den, Robin is slow to trust anyone, especially when the winter is just on the horizon. All this goes down the drain of course, when Robin unknowingly runs into the culprit, Marion, who is at the time on the running from her Father’s soldiers, to get the attention of a father who constantly ignores her. As you can probably guess, the beginnings of what’s to turn into much more than a simple friendship, has just fallen into place. Marion and Robin’s combined story is the journey the story takes us on, caring us along with Marion and Robin on all their greatest highs and darkest lows. After this introduction of sorts, to the world Hall’s created for his story of Robin Hood to play out in, the perfect fairy tale comes to an abrupt stop. Gradually it starts getting darker and darker by the day, until it gets to the point you think it couldn’t possibly get any darker, but it does. I think this is down to the fact that many say,’ love’s the most powerful force in this world,’ well if so, to what end could it drive Robin or Marion? And when is it too late to stop?
Teen Rating: All I can say is this book came extremely close to entirely engulfing me into it’s own twisted world, with it’s significantly blurred lines of good and evil and never letting me out again. I think I might have already mentioned that this book is maybe just a little bit dark, but if you haven’t noticed yet, let me say it again, this is a pretty dark book. Especially considering the fact that we almost all know the happy fairly tale like story of Robin Hood and his merry men ect. and have a good picture of what we take to be his story. But for Hall to come along and completely and utterly rip it to shreds and replace it with a much shadier version, and still be able to present to us the same Robin, all-be-it a fair bit darker version, but the same one we’ve always known and loved, it’s simply breathtaking to witness. 4/5 14+
