I’ve heard a lot about Christopher Buehlman over the last couple years from both fans of horror and epic fantasy, but I’m not a big horror fan, and The Blacktongue Thief featured a snarky rogue lead that I wasn’t quite in the mood for, so his work stayed mostly on the fringes of my awareness. I’m not a big fan of war novels either, but I heard a whole lot of praise for the prequel novel The Daughter’s War, with indications that it felt weightier and more character-driven, and it filled a tricky Bingo square, so I decided to give it a try. 

The Daughters’ War follows the third child of an Iberian-coded noble family, who enlists in an experimental military group that hopes to use magically bred giant corvids to turn the tide against the goblin hordes intent on killing or enslaving every human they can and taking the human lands for themselves. And while it’s a war story from start to finish, there’s also a strong undercurrent of family drama, with the lead clashing repeatedly with her drunkard oldest brother, leaning on the military connections of her second brother, and trying to protect her youngest brother who serves the cause as a wizard’s assistant. 

It’s clear from the opening pages that The Daughters’ War is to be a dark tale with no lack of gore, but it’s told in a confident style that really brings the lead’s voice through. There’s a bit of humor here, and more than a few interjections giving family or political context—including several entries in the hand of her youngest brother—but it’s mostly the matter-of-fact tale of a soldier who has seen all the horrors and come out on the other side with the physical and psychological scars to show for it. 

The pacing is that of a war story, for all that it truly does deliver a climax that brings together both the fighting and the interpersonal plotlines. It’s just not a story that feels like it consistently builds toward a climax so much as jerks there in fits and starts. There’s plenty of hurry up and wait, with periodic attacks punctuating stretches of attending military ceremonies—the lead is, after all, nobility, and has a brother high in the ranks—and trying to secure a food supply for a regiment full of ravenous birds. And those scenes are individually entertaining and fit well enough into the overall narrative, but they don’t generate a whole lot of forward momentum from the story. How that affects an individual reader will depend on their comfort with different pacing strategies; personally, it didn’t necessarily bother me, but I do wonder whether more momentum would’ve helped me immerse more thoroughly. 

Because at almost every turn, I found myself appreciating the quality of The Daughters’ War and generating genuine interest in the story. And yet it never hit the level of a tale that would stick in my mind for weeks, or something I couldn’t put down. Undoubtedly, part of this is about subgenre; I am not a war story aficionado, and it’s not incredibly surprising that this war story didn’t become a new favorite, even if it was well-written and delivered a quality family arc. This could easily be a five-star read for a big fan of the subgenre. But at the same time, it’s probably not one that’s going to convince you to become a fan of the subgenre if you aren’t already. 

I tried The Daughters’ War in part because of its reputation for weighty character work, and while it certainly brings the darkness and plenty of family drama, it felt more like a slow-moving tragedy than a tale that really dives into the messiness of complicated family. For all the gore, it’s not unrelentingly dark, as the first-person narration guarantees the lead survives, and there are some flashes of light—and even a romantic subplot!—amidst the darkness. But for all that it zooms in on the characters much more than the actual fighting, this is first and foremost a war tale, recommended primarily for fans of military stories. 

Recommended if you like: military fantasy. 

Can I use it for Bingo? It’s hard mode for Survival and also includes Orcs Trolls or Goblins, Features Dreams, Reference Materials, and a Prologue or Epilogue, and it’s Published in 2024..

Overall rating: 15 of Tar Vol’s 20. Four stars on Goodreads.