Jody Hedlund: A Daring Sacrifice

By Kelly Bridgewater

Description (From Amazon):

In a reverse twist on the Robin Hood story, a young medieval maiden stands up for the rights of the mistreated, stealing from the rich to give to the poor. All the while, she fights against her cruel uncle who has taken over the land that is rightfully hers. Forced to live in the woods and hide with the poor people she's grown to love, she works to save and protect them, but she never anticipates falling in love with the wealthy knight who represents all she's come to despise.

From Amazon

My Thoughts:

Jody Hedlund is a great writer who really captures the essence of getting into the character’s head for the readers and describing the setting. Saying this, I did download An Uncertain Choice, her first young adult novel because of the cover and enjoyed that story. With her second installment of A Daring Sacrifice, I feel torn about how I really feel.

First, the way that Juliana and Collin meet feels like Once Upon a Time. In the widely popular and wonderfully written television series, Once upon a Time, Snow White is running from her step-mother, the evil queen and is hiding in the woods. She jumps from a tree and steals from Prince Charming. There is an instant connection. In Hedlund’s book, Juliana jumps from a tree and steals from Collin, not realizing it was the man she met when she was younger. I’m not saying Hedlund took the idea from Once Upon a Time; I’m just drawing the connection. Trust me, I loved it Once Upon a Time, so it worked for me here too.

Besides liking her writing style, I did enjoy how Hedlund showed that true love should be about sacrificing our own comfort for the sake of the other. Jesus showed the ultimate sacrifice and love for us when he died on the cross, so Collin showed the same love for Juliana when he offered to take her place before she was about to burn at the stake. Sacrifice and giving of oneself is important to any successful relationship.

As for the movement of the plot, it was okay and moved along at a nice pace, but I still felt like the story dragged at times. I would have liked to see more of Collin as he spent the week living with the peasants on his land. Hedlund spent a good chunk of time showing us how Juliana viewed all the expensive parties that Collin threw her, but I felt cheated at seeing Collin work along the lower class.

A word of warning, this book might not be good for kids under sixteen years old to read because of the passion running through Juliana and Collin is very descriptive. I would have a hard time allowing my fourteen year old, who is learning to cope with his new hormones to read this novel.  I could just be overprotective. It is okay to disagree with me on this. I think parents would need to talk with their teen after reading this book. It would be a good discussion to talk about the emotions running through Juliana and Collin.

I received a complimentary copy of A Daring Sacrifice from Zondervan Publishing and the opinions stated are all my own.

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Purchase A Daring Sacrifice