No Good Deed by Kara Connolly: A Fun Time-Travel Take on Robin Hood!

No Good Deed by Kara Connolly
Published by Delacorte Press on July 18th 2017
Genres: Young Adult, Retellings, Fairy Tales Legends & Mythology
Pages: 352
Source: NetGalley
My content rating: YA (Some mild violence, No romance to speak of)
My rating:

Fans of Dorothy Must Die will love this reimagining of the legend of Robin Hood. Girl power rules supreme when a modern girl finds herself in the middle of a medieval mess with only her smart mouth and her Olympic-archer aim to get her home.

Ellie Hudson is the front-runner on the road to gold for the U.S. Olympic archery team. All she has to do is qualify at the trials in jolly old England. When Ellie makes some kind of crazy wrong turn in the caverns under Nottingham Castle—yes, that Nottingham—she ends up in medieval England.

Ellie doesn’t care how she got to the Middle Ages; she just wants to go home before she gets the plague. But people are suffering in Nottingham, and Ellie has the skills to make it better. What’s an ace archer to do while she’s stuck in Sherwood Forest but make like Robin Hood?

Pulled into a past life as an outlaw, Ellie feels her present fading away next to daring do-gooding and a devilishly handsome knight. Only, Ellie is on the brink of rewriting history, and when she picks up her bow and arrow, her next shot could save her past—or doom civilization’s future.

This book takes us on a lighthearted romp through time and lands us straight in Nottingham—where we get to spend time with a certain band of merry men. I hate to overuse the word “fun,” but that’s exactly how I’d describe the book. It twists the tale of Robin Hood quite nicely and never takes itself too seriously.

There are lots of elements of the book that I don’t want to give away, so I’m going to have to be really general in my review. You’ll just have to experience the book yourself to get more!

What Fed My Addiction:

• Ellie. Ellie is fascinating because she’s goal oriented enough that she knows what she wants (an Olympic gold medal) and she’s willing to work hard for it, but she’s also somewhat reckless—especially once she finds herself in Nottingham. She makes it through most of the peril in the book by simply winging it—so she’s a girl after my own heart. Ellie doesn’t pretend to know what she’s doing, but she does end up in a leadership role of sorts, mostly because she has certain moral values that she holds to strongly and she doesn’t compromise on them. She’s the type of girl who will fight for what’s right even when it’s hard. It’s practically impossible not to get behind that!
• Robin Hood characters with a twist. Connolly does a fantastic job of weaving in the characters that we know and love from Robin Hood (and from history) but making them surprising in some way. Ellie never knows what to expect from them and she’s quite surprised by many of the “characters” that she meets because they don’t quite match with what she knows of them. I thought this was a really fun way to liven up the story a bit. There were some interesting surprises!
• Just plain fun. Like I said, this is the best way I can explain this book. The pacing is great and there’s action and plenty of danger, but the overall feel of the book is lighthearted and fun. It keeps you guessing as well, which is always a plus!

What Left Me Hungry for More:

• No Maid Marian. Okay, I have to admit that I haven’t read the original version of this story (or any classic version, for that matter), so I was mostly basing my expectations on my foggy remembrances of the Robin Hood movies I’ve seen at some point or another. Since Maid Marian usually seems to be a focus in those, I expected her in this one, but she doesn’t appear (unless I missed her?). In fact, while the characters are fun takes on the Merry Men, I didn’t recognize any of the plot as really matching anything I’ve seen from Robin Hood before (but, again, my memory of the Robin Hood folklore is very sketchy at best!).

If you’re looking for a fun new take on an old tale, I highly recommend No Good Deed. It delivers. I give it 4/5 stars.

***Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. No other compensation was given and all opinions are my own.***

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