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Robyn Loxley and her elder sister Marian live privileged lives while growing up with the Lacklands—their wealthy foster family who controls commerce in Midshire, a crumbling city oppressed by post-Depression and wartime demands on resources. The Loxley sisters are just waking up to the fact that the Lacklands operate a crime syndicate and that their corrupt lifestyle creates near-slavery conditions in their factories. The unbearable conditions prompt some residents of Midshire to flee for freedom to Sherwood, a poverty-stricken, Hooverian shantytown.
The story opens when Robyn, a master mechanic in a Lackland steel mill, considers how to break out her best friend Will from a Japanese detainment camp. Curious, she wanders into Sherwood and meets some of the inhabitants, including the affable giant Jon Little and the psychic sensitive Tuck, a rebellious female much like herself. Robyn soon realizes she must give all the internment camp detainees a chance to flee their prison. As she and the Sherwood residents learn to trust and respect one another, they develop a plan to liberate the camp and house the new residents. Meanwhile, Robyn is not only at a crossroads with her lifestyle and her ideals. Her heart is yanked hither and yon by two paramours—Guy Gisbourne, the dark enforcer of the Lackland empire, who is obsessed with her, and earnest crimefighter Alaric Nottingham, with whom she experiences an easy, indescribable bliss.
Author Lieber playfully turns English folklore on its head in World War II America in this dieselpunk, noir spinoff of the classic Robin Hood tale. Connoisseurs of urban fantasy and offbeat romance will find this novel both a fun and fulfilling read. The clever characterizations and skillful melding of fantasy, adventure, and romance put a spotlight on sisterly devotion, oddball alliances, social conscience, and the human ability to rise above broken hearts and broken lives.
RECOMMENDED by the US Review