Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

Summerwode (book four of the Wode)
By J. Tullos Hennig
DSP Publications, 2017
Five stars

What price would you pay for Eden?

In all my years I’ve rarely found an author who can tackle something as ambitious as the Wode series and do it with such amazing skill of narrative and language and character. These are modern books, but Hennig pulls us into the Middle Ages, surrounds us with sights and sounds that bring the time alive. She tells a great story, weaving history tightly through it, and teaches us without seeming to. We don’t just enjoy a sweeping romantic tale, we learn about the world in which it takes place.

Richard Lionheart is back in England. His brother John has been routed and the Sherriff of Nottingham has been defeated by the outlaws of Shire Wode—who, incidentally, have rescued the king’s mother from imprisonment and have made her—Eleanor of Aquitaine—their ally.

What do our friends do now? Robyn and his sister Marian, and their childhood friend Gamelyn Boundys, still tied to the Templars as Sir Guy de Gisbourne, are in a position they could never have imagined. They might regain what they have lost. They might be free. It is, they all realize, possibly too good to be true.

Oh, I wanted this book to be the last of the Wode series. In this epic, improbable, but entirely compelling reimagining of the Robin Hood legend, summer is finally coming, and hope for some better future looms. But Hennig has other plans for her readers and her characters, who are as remarkable and vivid as any I’ve ever encountered. Gamelyn cannot shake off his Templar vows, nor his love for his master, Hubert de Gisbourne. He still resists the magic of the druids that ties him to Robyn and Marian, and protects the Shire Wode. As Guy, he is still bound to the world of warrior monks, anointed Christian kings, and the politics of a feudal nobility as it pummels the north of England in the late twelfth century. For all their love for their “poncy ginger paramour,� Robyn and Marian are frustrated and worried that Gamelyn cannot yet fully trust them and their magic—his magic. Their fates are tied together irrevocably, but in what way?

I loved everything about this book and this series. There is nothing tidy, about the story nor about the relationships in it. The evil characters are as delicious as the good ones, and very little is black and white. Hennig’s lead-in to the fifth (and, it seems final) book of the Wode is unexpected and clever, reminding us of the power of the Old Magic at the moment when rigid, judgmental Christianity was determined to suppress pagan practice. I confess, the ending left me a little upset and worried for these characters I love; but there’s no way I’ll miss the final chapter when it appears.