1--What is the title of your latest release?
THE TRAITOR OF SHERWOOD FOREST
2--What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
Peasant girl Jane Crowe agrees to spy for Robin Hood, but she soon realizes that the charming hero isn’t what he seems. As Robin’s tricks grow increasingly sinister, Jane grows more and more entangled in the dark web of Sherwood Forest—and with Robin himself—until there’s no easy way out.
3--How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
Plenty of British regions lay claim to Robin Hood, but I decided to set the action in Nottinghamshire locations, including Mansfield (where there was a medieval market), Clipstone, Sherwood Forest, and a royal residence known in the Middle Ages as “King’s Houses.” The residence was essentially in Sherwood Forest, and that allowed me to build Robin’s life around it. This also helped me find a home and a workplace for Jane, my protagonist, who takes a position in the King’s Houses kitchens.
4--Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life?
I’m pretty sure Jane and I would be pals, although I would probably annoy her. She’s much more serious than I am!
5--What are three words that describe your protagonist?
Thoughtful, sharp-eyed, survivor.
6--What’s something you learned while writing this book?
My research into medieval peasant life and housing was really fascinating. Television and movies depict the medieval world as unrelentingly grim, but in reality, people’s lives were ordinary: full of joys and sorrows, just like everyone else’s. And the work was very communal. Women played a huge role in everything from brewing beer to growing and processing food to healing. There’s no sense of a single ‘provider’—the whole family works together to survive.
7--Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
I do a light edit as I draft: when I start writing for the day, I’ll reread and clean up whatever I wrote the day before. It helps reorient me in the story. But I don’t overdo it. Trying to get it perfect before I finish the book is a recipe for getting stuck.
8--What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
I really love a green smoothie with…just kidding. It’s a bacon cheeseburger.
9--Describe your writing space/office!
I have one very tasteful wall where I film interviews (a 19th c. print of Sir Galahad, a well-stocked bookshelf), and the rest is an explosion of chaos and color: more bookshelves, several watercolor paintings of birds and flowers that my grandmother painted just before she died, a beautiful medieval cross-stich made for me by a student, desk mats patterned with stars, more books, and usually my cat sleeping by the window.
10--Who is an author you admire?
I admire hundreds of authors! But two recent authors I’m in awe of are Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Zen Cho. They both write such smart, engrossing books and they shift genres and historical periods effortlessly, but still retain their incredible, distinct voices. I’ll read anything and everything they write.
11--Is there a book that changed your life?
The book that really sent me down the medieval path was Njáls Saga, a strange 13th century Icelandic saga that’s sort of about a lawyer, but also about women’s lives, religious conversion, and what the point of “law” really is. It was one of the first medieval texts I read in university, and it upended everything I thought I knew about the past.
12--Tell us about when you got “the call.” (when you found out your book was going to be published)/Or, for indie authors, when you decided to self-publish.
Thanks to being in the 21st century, “the call” was preceded by a whole bunch of messages from my agent! But she is kind and wonderful and wanted to make sure I had the experience, so she called me and said, “THIS IS THE CALL!” It was about a minute and thirty seconds, but it was totally worth it.
13--What’s your favorite genre to read?
I read absolutely everything. I really can’t get stuck in a genre. My top three, I guess, are fantasy, literary fiction, and historical fiction, but I’ve also been on a mystery kick lately. And I love women’s fiction and science fiction too! See, this is hard to answer.
14--What’s your favorite movie?
House of Flying Daggers. The year it came out, I was alone in New Mexico at an academic conference and having a particularly tough time personally, so I bailed on sessions and went to watch it in the theatre by myself. It was one of the most gorgeous, heartbreaking movies I’ve ever seen and I still rewatch it regularly.
15--What is your favorite season?
I grew up in Florida, where we barely had seasons, so I have a strong appreciation for autumn–especially here in Vancouver, where the leaves last for months.
16--How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
I’m a brat about my birthday. I make sure everyone knows it’s coming and I usually rope them into doing something I love. I’m not the type to sit around and see if people remember! I’ll remind them.
17--What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
Author Lindsey Byrd is getting a new podcast off the ground called “Writing is Hard.” If you love hearing about new books and different authors’ experiences, I highly recommend it! You can find Lindsey’s show on YouTube and Spotify.
18--What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
My taste in food when I’m dining out is about as broad as my taste in literature—I get bored easily and like to try new things! But the cuisine I love to cook is Italian food. It just feels like home to me.
19--What do you do when you have free time?
I play more video games than I should. I also love exploring my city, walking in the woods and on the seawall. I’m into really long walks and not knowing exactly where I’ll end up, stopping to take photos along the way.
20--What can readers expect from you next?
I have a few very different books in the works. I’m extremely bad at sticking to the rules of any one genre, so whatever comes out next, I hope it will surprise you!
A Novel
An immersive, sultry, heart-pounding historical reimagining of the Robin Hood ballads, told through the piercing eyes of one of his spies.
Jane Crowe is an ordinary peasant girl who never dreamed she would work for the infamous Lord of the Greenwood. But when she’s forced out of her home, she has no choice but to turn to Robin Hood for help—and he makes her an irresistible offer. He needs a pair of eyes in the King’s Houses, and quiet, unassuming Jane—who has spent her whole life going unnoticed—will be the perfect spy.
At first, Jane’s work for Robin seems straightforward. She whispers to him about the nobles at King’s Houses and all their secrets, including the new Sheriff of Nottingham, who would like nothing more than to see Robin Hood’s head on a spike. But the more Jane is drawn into Robin’s world, the more she’s drawn to Robin himself—a man as charismatic as he is cunning, capable of plucking at her heart as easily as he notches an arrow. As Robin’s tricks grow increasingly dangerous, and shockingly violent, Jane starts to suspect that her hero cares more about his own legacy than helping the common people—and that despite his declarations of affection, he sees her as just another object to be stolen.
When Robin’s schemes implicate Jane in a brutal murder, she must decide: is she a prize to be won, a pawn to be used and discarded—or is she an equal player in the game between nobles and thieves?
Historical [Penguin, On Sale: April 29, 2025, Paperback / e-Book / audiobook, ISBN: 9780143138129 / eISBN: 9780593512241]
Amy S. Kaufman is the author of The Traitor of Sherwood Forest, a Robin Hood retelling based on the medieval ballads, forthcoming from Penguin Books in 2025. She is also a medieval scholar who has written about the Middle Ages for both academic journals and popular venues, including The Washington Post, and is co-author of The Devil’s Historians: How Modern Extremists Abuse the Medieval Past (University of Toronto Press, 2020).
Amy grew up in South Florida, but now lives in Vancouver, Canada, where she can’t stop taking pictures of the mountains. The Traitor of Sherwood Forest is her debut novel.
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