3. What do you think of hunting animals for food? If you had lived in the 1300s, do you think your ideas about hunting would have been different? How has a modern lifestyle influenced people’s thoughts about hunting?
4. How did the fact that Odette and Jorgen were both orphans and had gone hungry as children influence how they felt about the poor? What was Anna’s point when she said to Odette, “You’re not responsible for every single person in Thornbeck”？ Was it healthy or unhealthy for Odette to feel so responsible for feeding the poor and to go about it the way she did?
5. What do you think of Odette’s and Jorgen’s efforts to help Kathryn when she was working at the brothel? What caused her to go back to The Red House?
6. Is it possible to be too loyal or to be loyal to the wrong people? Who or what were Jorgen and Odette loyal to? How did their loyalties influence their behaviors?
7. Did you blame Jorgen for kissing the look-alike woman at the ball? How would you have felt if you were Odette?
8. What was Jorgen’s reaction to shooting Odette? How would you have felt if you were Jorgen? If you were Odette? Would you have found it easy to forgive?
9. What was Brother Philip’s attitude toward women? How do you think men’s attitudes toward women have changed over the centuries?
10. What were Jorgen’s and Odette’s attitudes toward the Bible? Do you think Odette treasured the Bible more because it was scarce and she could only read it when she could borrow portions of it from someone else? Does this change the way you think about owning a Bible?
11. Do you think the margrave’s judgments and punishments against Odette and Rutger were just? What was your favorite action taken by the margrave?
12. Did you like the parallels in this story to the Swan Lake story? What were the similarities to “Robin Hood”？
13. If not for Jorgen, do you think Odette would have married Mathis? Would Mathis have made a good husband? Why or why not?
14. How did this verse come true for Odette: “In all things God works for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose”？
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MELANIE DICKERSON IS a two-time Christy Award finalist and author of The Healer’s Apprentice, winner of the National Readers Choice Award for Best First Book in 2010, and The Merchant’s Daughter, winner of the 2012 Carol Award. She spends her time writing romantic medieval stories at her home near Huntsville, Alabama, where she lives with her husband and two daughters.