Review: Daughter of Redwinter

/ Eric Primm
Right now, we are living in a golden age of fantasy and science fiction literature. There are so many good books out and coming out that it’s difficult to keep up with authors and series that I want to follow up on, let alone find new authors. I’m lucky, though, because as a reviewer, I keep coming across new-to-me authors in the request queues. If I see an author that I had meant to read but didn’t, I usually try to request something from that author. This happened with Ed McDonald’s Daughter of Redwinter. Ed McDonald’s Blackwing floated on my want to read list, but I didn’t have room in the to be read pile. So, when Daughter of Redwinter was sent to me, I was ready to discover another great new author. First, I was hooked from that beautiful cover art alone. After finishing chapter one, I couldn’t put the book down. And any fantasy fan that opens this book also won’t be able to put it down as this golden age of SFF literature continues to produce great works.

Disclaimer: The publisher provided a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Any and all opinions that follow are mine alone.

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TL;DR

Ed McDonald’s Daughter of Redwinter blew me away. This slim fantasy novel is packed with action, magic, and mystery while giving readers characters to root for, to care for, and to hope for. Highly recommended.

Review: Daughter of Redwinter by Ed McDonald - Cover Page of Book - Woman with white hair surrounded by white arrows pointing away from her stands in front of four corpses
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From the Publisher

Those who see the dead soon join them.

From the author of the critically-acclaimed Blackwing trilogy comes Ed McDonald’s Daughter of Redwinter, the first of a brilliant fantasy series about how one choice can change a universe.

Raine can see—and speak—to the dead, a gift that comes with a death sentence. All her life she has hidden, lied, and run to save her skin, and she’s made some spectacularly bad choices along the way.

But it is a rare act of kindness—rescuing an injured woman in the snow—that becomes the most dangerous decision Raine has ever made.

Because the woman is fleeing from Redwinter, the fortress-monastery of the Draoihn, warrior magicians who answer to no king, and who will stop at nothing to reclaim what she’s stolen. A battle, a betrayal, and a horrific revelation force Raine to enter the citadel and live among the Draoihn. She soon finds that her secret ability could be the key to saving an entire nation.

Though she might have to die to make it happen . . .

Review: Daughter of Redwinter by Ed McDonald

While under siege by a noble, Raine performs an act of kindness that dooms her found family. Raine rescues an injured woman who is being hunted by the Draoihn, warrior-wizards. The Draoihn are famously above the law and won’t hesitate to kill Raine to capture the injured woman. The injured lady seeks the monastery that Raine and her assorted band of hippy/cultists are holed up. When Raine gets her inside, the injured woman turns on her hosts. The Draoihn destroy the gates of the monastery seeking their quarry. This allows the local noble to enter the monastery and begin slaughtering. Raine runs after the injured woman but the Draoihn find her first. Raine and the two Draoihn survive, barely. As thanks for her help, the Draoihn save Raine from the local noble. She journeys back with the warriors to their order’s stronghold. The whole time, Raine knows that she’s walking amongst people who will stone her death if they find out she can see and talk to the dead. Quickly, Raine begins to wonder if joining the order will protect her in such a dark world. Can she join the order and keep her secret?

Daughter of Redwinter is a first person point of view novel from Ed McDonald. Raine narrates all of the chapters, and while she may not be likable, I came to care for her. We want her to survive the trauma she’s endured, but more than that, we want her to do more than survive. We want her to find a place where she’s accepted. But, in her world, she may never be accepted because she can speak to the dead. Ulovar and Ovitus are the two Draoihn that chase her at the monastery. Through her actions, Ulovar, a high ranking noble, takes her under his stewardship. Ovitus, an apprentice Draoihn and Ulovar’s heir, offers Raine an awkward kind of friendship. They figure prominently in Raine’s life, and they need her as much as she needs them.

McDonald packed this book with the right balance of action, mystery, wonder, and character. I went into it knowing nothing about the author, nor had I read the blurb. I chose this book for its cover. Within a few pages, I was blown away, and with each turn of the page, the quality kept rising. By fantasy standards, this is a slim volume. My ARC was 333 pages. But Daughter of Redwinter punches out of its weight class, so to speak. There are magical battles, budding romances, esoteric studies, magical mysteries, scheming nobles, and inter-order politics. Basically, this book has everything I love in fiction.

Content Warnings

This is a grimdark book; so, of course it touches on some sensitive subjects. There is partner abuse, mental manipulation through magic (say that five times fast), and a stalker. McDonald handles these sensitive issues deftly. He does not use them excessively, nor are they thrown in for sake of shock value. They all end up being essential to the story. Please, just be aware that they are in the story.

Ovitus, one of the central characters, seems like a lovable guy except he can’t take “she’s not interested” at face value. This was awkward to read, but never at any point was his actions glorified or even condoned. It was very clear, very quickly that Ovitus is a creeper. This is sad for me because I liked Ovitus’s other aspects. It’s easy to forget that he’s a teen boy, and we all have misinterpreted signals before. However, he crosses a line when he ignores what the women are saying. Fortunately, he does not escalate his obsession into anything physical. He just remains awkward and creepy throughout.

Magic

Magical systems in fantasy range from the inexplicable to the highly systematized. McDonald’s magic system is somewhere in between. He’s clearly put a lot of thought into the system, and it hit the right spot for me. In his world, there are mental ‘gates’ that the magic users can access through trances. There are six gates in total with an additional, theoretical gate. Draoihn rise in rank based on the number of gates they can access. The first gate is, of course, the easiest. From there, they get much, much harder. The highest ranking Draoihn and leader of the order can access the fifth gate. Ulovar, Raine’s protector, can access the fourth gate. The sixth gate is that of death, and it’s forbidden to access that gate. Anyone Draoihn caught attempting will have all their bones broken, their eyes plucked from their head, and then thrown into the harbor to drown.

McDonald describes the magic well and gives us hints that there’s more depths to be explored. Larger aspects of the magical mysteries in this book are not explored as fully as I would have liked. I’m hoping future volumes will delve deeper into the mysteries of this world. Because what I’ve seen so far is fascinating.

There is one magical event that happens, is remarked upon, affects everyone’s life, but is not solved. This story thread just hangs out there as the rest of the plot rises in importance. I’m hoping that in the next book we learn more about what this event was, what it means, and/or what caused it.

The Central Mystery

I was enjoying this book, I actually forgot what it was trying to accomplish. Raine and the other characters had me glued to the page, and I kept hoping to learn whether Raine would stay and find her place in Redwinter or go and build a life for herself that I forgot there was an open mystery from the beginning of the book. We learn why the Draoihn were hunting the injured woman almost immediately, but it’s not till the end of the book that we learn why she did what she did.

Frankly, I loved this method of storytelling. The mystery simmered in the background while McDonald sauteed the other aspects of the story. (And I butchered that metaphor.)

Once the mystery came back into the foreground of the plot, I fell for each red herring that McDonald put in front of me. Each time I thought I had it figured out, I was wrong. And the solution was in front of me the whole time. Once the mystery is solved, it felt surprising, inevitable, and perfect.

Grimdark

Normally, I avoid the grimdark genre. If I wanted to see a dystopian world without hope, I’d look outside. Often, the grimdark stories I’ve started have been too dark. Some, I’d like to go back and read when I’m in a better mental space. But some books strike the right balance of grimdark and total hopelessness for my current mental state.

I’d classify Daughter of Redwinter as being in this latter category. I’d say it’s on the lighter end of grimdark. Hope is rare among its pages, and the main character lives under constant threat of death. But life is not a constant slog of depression, disease, and misery. There are moments of joy that feel like bursts of sun in Raine’s life. They make you believe that she’s capable of experiencing more in her life than just the constant terror of being found out.

Daughter of Redwinter gave me everything that I like about the grimdark genre without stressing me out. It’s a remarkable feat of balance that I’m still trying to figure out how McDonald pulled it off. My current theory is that he balanced the grimness of everyday life with the wonder and mysticism. However, he did it. It’s well done, and I’m now a fan of Ed McDonald.

Conclusion

Ed McDonald’s Daughter of Redwinter had me glued to the page from the start. More than one morning I woke face down with my check on the pages. McDonald found the correct balance of action, magic, mystery, and character to open a new series. Daughter of Redwinter may be a slim volume, but it’s packed full of the type of fantasy I want to read. Highly recomended.

Daughter of Redwinter by Ed McDonald is available from Tor Books on June 28th, 2022.

© PrimmLife.com 2022

8.5 out of 10!