This novel was a great focus on fantasy. The title is thrilling, the cover intense, and the book itself had me glued to every page.

I read a lot of YA Fantasy, and this is one of the best YA fantasies I've read in a while. There are so many cliches and tropes you see repeated in this genre, but this one was a standout and possessed a lot of originality.

The world-building was amazingly thorough, to the point that you can see the sequels coming and I am here for them. There was really more of an ensemble cast to the story, vs. focusing on one character, but they were all extremely well developed. It's hard to give a synopsis of a lot of fantasy books without it sounding like you're jumping the shark, so instead I'll just say this one compares to Ursula K Le Guin,

This was a unique book overall but it felt too long. It took me forever to read as it dragged at times. I wish I enjoyed it more than I did. I may continue the series because the end to grab my attention.

DNF @ 42%

Unfortunately, it’s time to admit that this isn’t the book for me. Every time I set it down, I found myself wanting to come back to it less and less. The concept behind the story is interesting, but the execution and overall writing style is lacking for me.

I forgot a lot of this as soon as I read it, I didnt care what was happening. I didnt care what was happening to the characters. It was just mindless reading.

(Not Spoiler free)

I forget what drew me to this book, probably the flavor text, but it took me a while to actually get around to it. In a lot of ways this feels like pretty European-inspired fantasy with a lot of pages where nothing is really happening, but then the stuff with Raine and the dead comes up, and it gets more interesting. I look forward to seeing more develop between Raine and Esher, as well as what will happen with Sanvaunt now that Ovitus’ lying about having had a relationship with Raine is revealed. I’m also looking forward to seeing what’s going to happen with the Queen of Feathers, especially now that Raine is being recognized as an apprentice. I think this has potential and some really interesting elements that I’m looking forward to seeing further explored and expanded.

Daughter of Redwinter wasn't on my radar until the generous folks from Tor sent me a copy for review. I saw that Robin Hobb rated this book highly and any book she enjoys always piques my interest.

Daughter of Redwinter took me by surprise. I didn't expect to love it as much as I did but I went on a journey with these characters, got to know them, and became invested in their story.

Raine can see the dead but doing so means the death sentence and she can't let anyone know about this ability. When she helps an injured woman in the snow, she gets tangled up in the messy world of warrior magicians, ghosts, and demons.

Raine is a 17 yr old with no clan and no family. She is reckless and makes poor decisions but she is also young and as she deals with a lot of misfortune and trauma, Raine changes, learns, and grows to become her own person. I actually love that Raine isn't a 'chosen one' but instead she is more of a side character and we get to see her story from that point of view.

At its core, Daughter of Redwinter shows how a pious society can unjustly treat those who are different, out of fear of what they don't know or try to understand. There's politics, schemes, apprentices learning a unique magic system, and mysterious beings from the grave.

This book has great queer rep (MC and side characters), female friendships, fascinating world-building, and thought-provoking questions. The ending was quite satisfying and left me excited for the sequel. I'm so curious to see where this series goes, not just for Raine's journey but the others as well.

Thank you Tor for sending me a copy to review! All opinions my own.

Wasn't that bad, just wasn't my style. I didn't care for the protagonist at all and I found the story to kind of drag/easy to predict. I thought the world-building was pretty good. Not something I would go out of my way to continue the series for, but a decent enough book.

Ed McDonald’s Raven’s Mark series is one of my all time favourite trilogies so I was incredibly excited to read his newest release, Daughter of Redwinter. The story follows Raine, a young woman with the ability to see the dead. Having this ability is a death sentence and if anyone finds out she will be killed. When Raine finds herself at Redwinter, she wants nothing more than to be trained as one of the legendary Draoihn, but instead is forced to serve the apprentices she hoped to train with. When Raine uncovers a plot to harm the van of the LacNaithe clan, Raine has to use her ability to save everyone she knows.

Daughter of Redwinter is a book that feels completely different to McDonald’s previous work. While the story is dark, it doesn’t feel quite as grim. This first instalment is compelling and while it took me a little while to really get into the story, I was completely captivated. The story is well executed and I was definitely on the edge of my seat for the latter half of the book. There were some surprises I didn’t quite expect the ending has made me absolutely desperate to pick up Traitor of Redwinter.

The Raven’s Mark series has really detailed world building and this is true of Daughter of Redwinter also. The magic system based around gates was fascinating and Raine’s ability to see the dead made for some particularly eerie and dark scenes. McDonald explains the magic and history clearly without info-dumping and I can’t wait to see how the world expands as the story continues.

Raine is a really fascinating protagonist and she undergoes so much in one story. I loved seeing her grow as a person and can’t wait to see where the story takes her. I particularly liked seeing her friendships grow with the other girls at Redwinter. I also really liked Sanvaunt and Ulovar and hope we get to see more of them in book two.

Daughter of Redwinter is a tense, gripping start to a new fantasy series. If you’re looking for a book that will have you turning pages long into the night, then look no further than this.

DNF @ 26%
Given 3 stars because I think this would have ended up in the 2-3 star range.

There is nothing overly wrong with this and I don't think it's bad, it's just not doing anything for me. I was reading this over the course of a few hours I was waiting in line for a concert and it was entertaining and quick to read, but after that night I just have no incentive to continue. Not for any particularly glaring issue, not every DNF is because I'm having a miserable time or because I tihnk the book is bad, this just isn't doing it for me right now.

Something that is a flaw in this book is the complete lack of any exposition or context. I don't know if this is something that was updated or fixed for the final published version of the book. I did receive my copy via netgalley, so it's possible my copy is slightly different from the published version. But every word or idea pertaining to the magic in this book went mostly unexplained. The most prominent examples is the "gates" which gives someone their magic, you have to pass through "gates" and passing through each one gives you a new ability/ deepens your magic. That was my understanding, but there was no real explanation. Is it gates inside the mind? Are these actual gates between planes of existence? What was the deal with magic having a "sound" that people who were magic users could hear?

The thing with this, is that Raine is a character that is new to magic and understanding it. She would have been the perfect vessel for exposition, since she knows about as much as the reader does. Except she doesn't ask or seem to care. I think maybe some more understanding was on the way since we were journeying to like... some sort of institution that was also under-explained. But if I'm a quarter of a way through a book, usually I am not so confused about basic pillars of the world or magic.

I think that if this book wasn't in first person it might have been better, because then things could have been explained to the reader, without necessarily being explained to Raine, or requiring Raine to care. Her emotional state and general disassociation/ apathy was understandable, so I'm not mad about that. But it prevented the reader from knowing anything or feeling grounded in the world, and therefore really impacted my ability to sink my teeth into the story.

This is always something I could return to one day, it's not like it's going to evaporate form my kindle, but for now- it's not doing much for me, and there are other books I'd rather be focused on at the moment. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

What a great read! From the first page, this book grabbed me and carried me along. Superb action, wonderful characters, ever-escalating stakes, and mystery. The story opens with Raine, our heroine, creeping out the back way from a monastery under military siege, looking for an escape route, only to encounter a mysterious wounded woman who is desperate to get back in. On the woman’s heels are a group of warrior-magicians, bent on stopping her even if it means tearing down the walls. The military besiegers are willing to aid the magicians, but what they’re after is inside — people with “grave-sight” that allows them to see, and sometimes speak with, the dead. Raine is one of those with the talent that means execution, should it be discovered. All her life she has hidden, lied, and run away to save her skin, and she’s made some spectacularly bad choices along the way.

The book was full of drama and poignant emotion, hard-bitten action and sweet romance. The balance between slowly unfolding mystery, lighting reversals and betrayals, and coming of age of a most remarkable heroine was exceptionally well handled. Most of all, from the very first paragraphs, I found myself relaxing into the hands of a master storyteller, confident that wherever the tale took me, it would be a wild and infinitely satisfying ride. I was never disappointed.

Thank you so much to the publisher for sending me an ARC!
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Unfortunately I DNFed this, it just didn’t catch my attention and maybe I’ll get into it again when I’m in the perfect headspace to give this another try!

A teenager discovers they have magic abilities and joins a group with the same abilities hoping to learn from them. Sound familiar? Yet, The Daughter of Redwinter by Ed McDonald is anything but that simple. It is a story with those elements, but so is it a tale of the class divide, finding a place to belong, and reflecting and knowing yourself. Raine has the grave-sight, the ability to see the spirits of the dead, an ability that would get her killed should anyone know. The Draoihn is a group of people who are not only from renowned clans of their nation but can open what they call gates that give them otherworldly abilities, each gate unlocking different ones of varying strength. The two immediately collide to dramatic effect that will find Raine with the Draoihn’s company and living in Redwinter, their home.

Right away, Raine’s current situation is high-intensity, hooking you. She joined up with a cult of soothsayer sisters under siege in an old monastery by people who believe the sisters’ have the grave-sight because of Raine. While following a spirit through a hidden path out of the monastery where they might escape, she discovers an injured young woman chased by two people with abilities she has never seen before. After a series of tragic, traumatic, and supernatural events, Raine finds herself in Redwinter, home of the Draoihn, where she finds a life for herself. In the beginning, there were a few alarm bells that had me worried. Raine, seventeen years of age, was dating a man named Braithe, twice her age, who she had feelings for since she was thirteen. After he hits her for bringing the injured girl into the monastery, worried about their survival, Raine’s inner monologue implies that it wasn’t the first time. The word grooming is never said, but there is ample evidence in the text to draw that conclusion, as this also hovered around a cult of conwomen and fake soothsayers. However, the situation resolves with Raine realizing the kind of person Braithe truly is and what she is in his eyes. My worries were resolved, knowing Braithe’s future had nothing but suffering in it, and their relationship would no longer be a part of this book. How quickly this is introduced but isn’t romanticized and doesn’t stick around shows Raine’s uneasy life so far, even before the inciting incident that tragically leads her to Redwinter.


Easily one of the best covers I’ve seen in 2022.
After the siege and the incident beneath the monastery is when the book takes off—slowly being introduced to the world of the Draoihn as she recovers from her experience. On the road to Redwinter, the difference between Raine and her Draoihn companions slowly becomes apparent, especially regarding the apprentice and heir to Clan LacNaithe, Ovitus, despite their relative age. As they come to Redwinter, Raine feels the metaphorical and literal divide between her and the Draoihn. They believe that what they protect, a source of power they call the Crown, supposedly created everything, and thus the Draoihn put themselves over all other life to defend it. Likewise, many of the Draoihn seen in this book are part of or join economically powerful clans, so are not only their actions above other people but also their status. This divide is seen throughout the book, such as the fact that Ovitus does not know the names of any of his servants or how many Draoihn, even those apprentices who came from nothing, treat Raine differently than they would have if she were one of them. This mixing of an economic divide with the divide in power of the Draoihn versus others is so well done by both Raine and us, the readers asking ourselves whether the Draoihn are truly good or not.

It often seems that when teenagers written in fantasy tend to stop acting like a teenager when the grander conflict begins to happen, and they need to step up as if teenagers can’t act like teenagers and still be whatever archetype or role is meant for the book. McDonald never strays away from Raine and the apprentices she meets and befriends from acting their age. They have doubts about their future. They make foolish decisions. They think they know everything when they do not. They don’t know what to do about their feelings for another person, especially when those feelings would not be accepted by the religion of their society. Raine finds a place with the other teenagers, yet she isn’t one of them. She makes friends with many of Clan LacNaithe’s apprentices, but their status is above hers. She is with them but separate from them, becoming a large part of Raine’s internal and external struggle. Her being able to see the spirits of the dead is a taboo that could get her killed should any of them, including her newly made friends, find out. Typical teenage behavior is seen throughout the novel, even when their lives are in danger. Ovitus is a prime example. Without spoiling it, I guarantee many who read this book have known the kind of idiotic teenage boy the LacNaithe heir appears to be in this book.

There are often moments of self-reflection from Raine in the book, and I appreciate that in a protagonist. It seems in character, both for her age and the experiences, traumatic or otherwise, that she has survived. Because of her ability to see the dead, running from home to join a cult of charlatan sisters, and the incident beneath the monstery, Raine has built many strong walls and self-defense mechanisms. The Daughter of Redwinter is not only about Raine’s journey but how she learns to balance protecting herself and opening up. The self-reflection goes hand in hand with the novel’s worldbuilding. It is all through Raine’s eyes, as she is the one telling us this story, and McDonald does not waste any words building that world that would take us out of the book. In other words, the worldbuilding important to Raine is also essential to us, the reader. Such as the case for example, when she is on the road to Redwinter grieving for what had happened in the Dalnese Monastery. She is broken from grief, so even though she travels and learns about new places, it’s not crucial to her and, therefore, not essential to us. That is until it is vital information to Raine later, and consequently, we can look back and realize how the author gave us that worldbuilding without it bogging down Raine’s emotional journey.

Endings that seem so obvious in hindsight are highly enjoyable. The Legend of Zelda puzzle-solving sound effect occurs in your brain moments before or after the protagonists figure it out. The clues were all there, leading to the book’s climax, but McDonald has you so invested in Raine’s struggle with her place with the Clan LacNaithe that the author can slip them all past you. A substantial part of the story is seeing Raine going from broken, uncaring, and in emotional pain to finding a life, friends, and belief in herself to make the right decisions in the end. We’ll have to wait until the next book to see how those decisions will affect her future, but I am highly looking forward to it.

Very solid start to a new series. It kept interest and felt different enough to stand out from the rest.

I'm generally really particular about my fantasy books but this one was something special, in my opinion. I was drawn in by the cover and the writing kept me hooked all the way through! I definitely need to read more books by Ed McDonald.

Daughter of Redwinter by Ed McDonald is a spellbinding fantasy novel that will sweep you away on an epic adventure. The story follows a young warrior as she sets out to avenge her family and claim her birthright as the daughter of Redwinter. McDonald's world-building is immersive, with richly detailed landscapes and magical lore. The characters are diverse and dynamic, with their own unique abilities and personalities. The action is fast-paced, with epic battles and duels that will leave you breathless. Daughter of Redwinter is a must-read for fantasy enthusiasts who crave a thrilling and unforgettable journey.

This one is difficult to rate. It has a lot of similarities to NEVERNIGHT, which is an interesting choice. This one is pretty...bland. The world is well-done, but generic, and so is everything: characters, magic, plot...etc. You've probably read this book before somewhere, and there's a good chance it was better.

Thank you Netgalley and Macmillan-Tor/Forge for a copy of Daughter of Redwinter by Ed McDonald.

"Raine can see--and more importantly, speak--to the dead. It's a wretched gift with a death sentence that has her doing many dubious things to save her skin. Seeking refuge with a deluded cult is her latest bad, survival-related decision. But her rare act of kindness--rescuing an injured woman in the snow--is even worse.
Because the woman has escaped from Redwinter, the fortress-monastery of the Draoihn, warrior magicians who answer to no king and who will stop at nothing to retrieve what she's stolen. A battle, a betrayal, and a horrific revelation forces Raine to enter Redwinter. It becomes clear that her ability might save an entire nation.
Pity she might have to die for that to happen..."

Daughter of Redwinter is the first in a series. Raine has a special ability that is a curse and a blessing. The magic system in this novel is well written and the characters are fleshed out. I am excited for the sequel to come out this year.

I was unsure if I would enjoy the first book of The Redwinter Chronicles and had not read anything before by Ed McDonald and I was left … underwhelmed. Daughter of Redwinter is the first installment of a new epic fantasy series set in a world where seeing the dead is a thing but is certainly not a good thing. Continue reading to see my thoughts on this new series.

Issues of Characters/Themes
Some of the characters were pretty interesting and intriguing, doing a good job of creating interest for further character development in subsequent books in the series. In certain ways, however, some characterizations and events were not necessary, such as grooming and abusive relationships. These did not add to the story nor create any character growth, only later realizations and comparisons to other relationships.

There was also a character that would not accept rejection by numerous characters but continued with stalking behaviors. There was some queer representation, but it was either a passing comment or considered something to hide rather than an accepted aspect of someone’s identity. Unfortunately, these were not addressed in ways that cast these as negative behaviors. While these problematic themes all could create avenues for conflict in the series, it seems mostly unnecessary.

Pace & World Building
The pace of Daughter of Redwinter was up and down, which I do not always like in a book. I could see this causing someone to not enjoy the book or get through it. But overall, the overarching story and conflict were fairly interesting. There was a clear effort, being the first book of a trilogy, to build the world, which may in part contribute to the meandering pace at times. I still think more work needs to be done to flesh out the world.

There could have also been more discussion of how the magic system actually worked. There are Draoihn whose magic works through opening Gates and their degree of power is proportionate to the number of Gates they can open. That is about all I got. The ability of our main character to see the dead is also not greatly explored. I understand she’s lived with it her whole life, but there isn’t a huge understanding of how it works and she does not seem to be very curious about it either. Her ability was mostly just a reason for her to be distant from people for fear they may turn her in.

Overall
Daughter of Redwinter had some potential that it did not really live up to. If you generally like fantasies and want to read a new series this could be for you; it’s just not for me. I think my main concerns stemmed from the fact that it is the POV of a 17-year-old girl where a 17-year-old girl is certainly not the one writing it. It leads to an unfortunate set of stereotyped behaviors and goals. Although, I would consider reading the sequel to see if some of my critiques are too hasty.

Daughter of Redwinter is a story that follows the protagonist Raine, a 17 year old girl that can see the dead. Seeing the dead is very much outlawed in this world.
Honestly, it took me too long to finish this book. McDonald's writing did not hold my attention at all. The characterization isn't favourable in any way for me. What made me feel so put off by this book is the age gap plot line. Might as well add trigger warning because the scenes involving said age gap/grooming is in the early chapters of the book. Pacing of the book could be much better as it drags in the middle of the book.