-Melanie Dickerson
She knows women are expected to marry, cook, and have children, not go to war. Can she manage to stay alive, save her mother, and keep the handsome son of a duke from discovering her secret? When Mulan takes her father's place in battle against the besieging Teutonic Knights, she realizes she has been preparing for this journey her whole life—and that her life, and her mother's, depends on her success. As the adopted daughter of poor parents, Mulan has little power in the world. If she can't prove herself on the battlefield, she could face death—or, perhaps worse, marriage to the village butcher. Disguised as a young man, Mulan meets the German duke's son, Wolfgang, who is determined to save his people even if it means fighting against his own brother. Wolfgang is exasperated by the new soldier who seems to be one step away from disaster at all times—or showing him up in embarrassing ways. From rivals to reluctant friends, Mulan and Wolfgang begin to share secrets. But war is an uncertain time and dreams can die as quickly as they are born. When Mulan receives word of danger back home, she must make the ultimate choice. Can she be the son her bitter father never had? Or will she become the strong young woman she was created to be? This fresh reimagining of the classic tale takes us fifteenth-century Lithuania where both love and war challenge the strongest of heroes. ----- This Mulan fairytale is retold as a Christian romance and I felt it did a great job for its’ target audience. Action, adventure, romance, faith and girl-power! There is a lot of spiritual content and while the romance between main characters is very chaste the descriptions of war and tactics weren’t particularly graphic but they were detailed for their medieval time period. I felt the author did a great job meshing the ethnic cultures of her characters into their time period. This story does not closely follow the Disney story versions. Favorite quote: “We were only children, Steffan. God forgives us for being careless and not knowing what to do. We'll never be able to be good enough to make up for what happened. I guess we have to accept that God's grace is sufficient.”
Heidi Y.