This review was originally posted on Addicted To Romance

This review may contain spoilers, so fair warning, upon reading the review.



The Warriors Maiden is part of the pretty popular fairy tale retelling inspirational series. I don’t know about you, but I have seen these books all over my Libby app and I do adore a good fairytale retelling. I am doing the fairytale retelling reading challenge this year and this book here is part of that reading challenge as the theme for the month is “Mulan” and there just aren’t that many romance retellings featuring this retelling and I do wish that there was more. But it was also a good reason for me to pick up this author which I have been wanting to for a while. She tends to tackle the fairytales and not just the popular ones used in romance like Cinderella or Beauty and the Beast, but the retellings we don’t see used very much in fiction. I was so pleasantly surprised by this book. It is pretty close to the retelling of Disney’s Mulan (animated version). What we have in this setup, is it takes place in eastern Europe, and there is a war going to be happening soon. Our heroine, Mulan, was adopted by this European family in Lithuania, her adopted father was of little use and very emotionally abusive and a drunk at times. But her mother taught her everything that she knew. When war is called upon them, and Mulan realizes if she doesn’t go, they could lose their home as her adopted father is of little use to them now. So she cuts her hair, dresses in the warrior tunic and goes into the training where she meets Wolfgang, who is the son of a German Duke. There is a close friendship that forms between Mulan and Wolfgang, but it’s revealed early on that Mulan is a woman but she is a capable fighter and Wolfgang can’t seem to let her go home as he knows that she should. Because a woman fighting in a war is unheard of. As Wolfgang and Mulan and their warriors work together to defeat the armies out to destroy them, it will also build a beautiful love between the young pair.

I will be honest, I didn’t know what to feel about this book. I did listen to this one as an audiobook and while I enjoyed the narration, i just had a hard time really wanting to be invested in the story. I think maybe because it’s more fade to black type of steam, I honestly wasn’t expecting. I didn’t really look into the author or this series that much. So I really went into this one pretty blind. And I just wasn’t prepared for such a light on the steam type of read and I guess its also YA (which I had no clue haha) but granted most historical’s if written realistically, could be categorized as young adult instead of adult as most women got married really young But I was intrigued by this story, I had a fun time with the connection to the Disney tale of Mulan, and seeing how the author developed this story. Even though it doesn’t take place in China, I was so intrigued by this and the romance just seemed so much more authentic. But I had a difficult time connecting with the chemistry between the two here. It just felt like an adventure between friends at least till the end of the book, I didn’t really feel much intimacy being grown here. (and yes you can grow an intimate romance without sex in it). So I just wasn’t fully prepared for this writing style. It’s not bad at all, I just don’t think I was prepared for it, I didn’t do my due diligence in doing the research that needed to be done here so that I could go into the story with a better mindset. So part of this is my fault, however, I do think if you enjoy inspirational romance with a fairytale retelling, and don’t mind a more YA/NA feel to the audience, then you definitely will get a kick out of this one. I do plan on delving further into this series though and exploring more of this author’s work.

Trigger Warnings:
Bullying, Reference to torture and pain, violence and death. Reference to Religious practices.