The Bibliophile's Bookshelf

Title: The Silent Songbird

Series: Hagenheim #7

Author: Melanie Dickerson

Genre: Young Adult, Clean Romance, Christian Fiction, Historical Fiction, Retelling

Rating: 4.5 stars

Review:

Evangeline is gifted with a heavenly voice, but she is trapped in a sinister betrothal until she embarks on a daring escape and meets brave Westley le Wyse. Can he help her discover the freedom to sing again?

Desperate to flee a political marriage to her cousin King Richard II’s closest advisor, Lord Shiveley—a man twice her age with shadowy motives—Evangeline runs away and joins a small band of servants journeying back to Glynval, their home village.

Pretending to be mute, she gets to know Westley le Wyse, their handsome young leader, who is intrigued by the beautiful servant girl. But when the truth comes out, it may shatter any hope that love could grow between them.

More than Evangeline’s future is at stake as she finds herself entangled in a web of intrigue that threatens England’s monarchy. Should she give herself up to protect the only person who cares about her? If she does, who will save the king from a plot to steal his throne? – summary from Goodreads

The Silent Songbird was a wonderful Little Mermaid retelling set in medieval England!

To many people’s surprise I don’t really like the Little Mermaid. However, retellings are a whole different story. I love Little Mermaid retellings, and this was no exception!

I love how the traditional aspects of the Little Mermaid were incorporated into this story, and how this was woven into the world. We still had the singing, which I liked, and I liked how it was an attention grabber for Westley, but not the entire reason he was obsessed with the maiden. I really liked how mutism was incorporated, but how it was resolved earlier in the story, allowing for Westley and Evangeline to get to know each other better.

I also liked the reason why Evangeline left her home. I could never quite understand why Ariel left in the movie without that many qualms. This book I could see why she left and completely understood it. It was also more realistic, in my mind.

Evangeline was a wonderful character! I quite enjoyed her- she was tough and sweet, as well as a hard worker. I enjoyed how she wasn’t afraid to work hard so she could live the life she wanted to live. I also liked how she cared about others. She also had a really nice selfish storyline. She wasn’t actually selfish, but she was very concerned she was. I liked her exploration of this, and how it was concluded with her learning wanting a life of your own isn’t selfish.

One of my favorite parts of this story was her learning how to defend herself. I love it when female characters accept help but aren’t completely defenseless themselves.

Westley was amazing! I felt like he was a realistic male character, that had a little more flaws than some of the other male main characters in this series. He was hurt and offended when he learned that Evangeline lied to him, and he struggled to trust her again, which caused some issues. He also said some things that he didn’t mean. He made mistakes and then strived to correct his mistakes. He was very kind and caring, and valued truthfulness and honesty.

Part of the story that I couldn’t quite wrap my head around was Evangeline participating in the signing competition. That didn’t seem like the best idea from the get-go, and I don’t understand why everybody agreed to it. This could have been thought out a little better.

These are Colin’s (from The Princess Spy) parents, and Ranulf and Annabel’s (from The Merchant’s Daughter) son! I love these throwbacks and how everything connects. I just adored seeing Annabel and Ranulf happy and married!

The storyline itself was a lot of fun and I enjoyed it. Dickerson does a wonderful job of telling this classic tales in medieval times with unique twists and turns. This story feels like its own story, too, with the feeling of the classic fairytales. The faith in this book is also astounding and is very comforting to me!

The Silent Songbird is a historical fiction retelling of the Little Mermaid with unique twists and turns, is faith-based, has wonderful and realistic characters, and adventure!