The Daughters' War
Ratings14
Average rating4.1
15
Ratings14
Average rating4.1
Enter the fray in this luminous new adventure from Christopher Buehlman, set during the war-torn, goblin-infested years just before The Blacktongue Thief. The goblins have killed all of our horses and most of our men. They have enslaved our cities, burned our fields, and still they wage war. Now, our daughters take up arms. Galva — Galvicha to her three brothers, two of whom the goblins will kill — has defied her family’s wishes and joined the army’s untested new unit, the Raven Knights. They march toward a once-beautiful city overrun by the goblin horde, accompanied by scores of giant war corvids. Made with the darkest magics, these fearsome black birds may hold the key to stopping the goblins in their war to make cattle of mankind. The road to victory is bloody, and goblins are clever and merciless. The Raven Knights can take nothing for granted — not the bonds of family, nor the wisdom of their leaders, nor their own safety against the dangerous war birds at their side. But some hopes are worth any risk.
Featured Series
1 primary book2 released booksBlacktongue is a 2-book series with 1 primary work first released in 2021 with contributions by Christopher Buehlman.
Series
1 primary book2 released booksThe Blacktongue Thief is a 2-book series with 1 primary work first released in 2021 with contributions by Christopher Buehlman.
Reviews with the most likes.
Overall, I liked this book and it was well written, but I just wanted more from it. There was a lot of talking about things happening and very little of it actually happening. That aside, the plot was interesting and the characters felt fully realized. Worth a read.
Loved it loved it loved it. A beautiful somber telling of a brutal war and also of family and of love. I didn’t know that I wanted to learn this much more about Galva, but I am so glad that I have.
I cannot wait for more from this world, and more from this author in general.
Probably would have been a good idea to tell readers to read book 1 first… since this prequel is more of a backstory.
When I first read that the next Blacktongue book was a prequel covering The Daughters' War, I knew it was going to be divisive. Following up Kinch is big shoes to fill, and we've already been exposed to Galva's personality which was never going to carry the book for some people. I am not one of these people.
Thanks to the framing and Buehlman's methods of making the world feel bigger than it is, this felt like a historical fantasy and Galva's more dry personality fits for the subject matter of the third in a trio of wars so bad that the majority of the forces are made up of women and old people. There's a nice variety of characters, though we do mainly focus on a small handful, which rotate out throughout the book.
The writing maintains the level of quality I'd expect from Buehlman at this point and shows that he can switch genre/sub-genre masterfully as required by the story being told. Humour being exchanged from Blacktongue Thief for more horror and emotion here, with the war itself and Galva being forced at odds with her brother.
Probably the only disappointment for me is that Galva is tied to an experimental unit of corvid knights where each person leads two giant war-birds specially bred for fighting goblins, yet they feel like a relatively small part of the book for how big a part of Galva's character they make.
