I'm so delighted to say this - Elodie Harper has done it again.

I am a huge fan of the Wolf Den trilogy. It is my favourite historical fiction series.

I think what I love most about Harper's writing, that is once again exemplified in Bouddica's Daughter, is her understanding of the complexity of human relationships. I don't think there are many authors that can write characters like her. They feel so authentically real, rather than only existing in pages.

This is another book by her that is driven by womanhood. And I love it. The female characters draw on strength from each other, challenge each other and uplift one another, without classism.

I think another thing that a lot of historical fiction struggles with, is making dialogue fit in with the time period whilst not making in clunky. Harper navigates this so well.

Simply, you must read this book. Now, I am away to wipe up my tears that Harper always seems to make spring forth with her writing.

Thank you to Head of Zeus and Netgalley for a copy of the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Boudicca's Daughter is filled with rich prose, complex relationships, and a very serious tone. This was my first book by Harper and I can absolutely see why she has so many fans. The scenes flowed really well together, it felt very easy to read, while still being full of detail.

I am feeling a bit mixed about this one though and I can't quite put my finger on why. I was a bit bored reading this and couldn't quite latch onto any of the characters. It had all the ingredients of a story that I would love. I think, for me, the characters were just missing the bit of something I needed to feel fully invested. For much of the story, the plot happens to the characters.

I definitely seem to be in the minority, so I'm thinking that I just like my historical fiction with a bit more 'otherness'. We don't know much about Iron Age Britain and I definitely felt transported to the world Harper built, but there was something that felt inexplicably modern, like I could tell that this was written in the 2o20s. I think this would be a perfect book for more casual history fans or people who love stories about female rage.

3.5 ⭐️ - Review Contains Spoilers

So conflicted about this book/review as it has been one of our most anticipated releases since Elodie Harper mentioned it at an event to promote The Temple of Fortuna.

This book was enjoyable, and Elodie Harper will continue to be an auto buy author because we loved The Wolf Den trilogy. The pacing for Bouddica’s Daughter felt a bit off; the first half being dedicated to Boudicca herself, the last 50 pages or so raced through some really interested and key events in Solina’s story. The book started to get really interesting at about 70% of the way in and seemed to rush towards the end. Nero’s wife’s death is decided and happens in a few pages like an after thought (when actually it’s a key plot point), and Solina falling in love with Paulinus was really unnecessary and in some ways uncomfortable to read. That being said though, the story was great, the research was great and Rome was depicted so vividly. The pacing was just a bit disappointing for a book that we’ve had such high hopes for!

Thank you NetGalley, Union Square & Co., and Elodie Harper for the opportunity to read Boudicca’s Daughter. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and learned a lot about this time period while reading.

Told through multiple perspectives, the story transports you back in time to the brutal world of the Roman Empire. It explores power, privilege, grief, loss and survival with emotional depth and historical authenticity.

At its core are complex, raw and deeply human relationships.

A few of the lines that stayed with me:
“This is a blade so deadly it might cut any who touch it. The words of a dead traitor written in his hand.”
“What has my life been if not endurance in the face of loss”

Elodie Harper has such a gift for bringing the figures of the ancient world to life. I loved her Wolf Den trilogy and enjoyed Boudicca's Daughter even more! Solina is endlessly strong and resilient, and I admire how conflicted she was throughout the book as she dealt with the guilt of being the only member of her family to survive. This was an incredibly well-written and believable account of how Boudicca's daughter might have lived following the death of her mother.
I especially appreciate how Harper is able to portray the horror of sexual violence without going into detail - her discussion of the characters' emotions is so compelling.
Paulinus also had excellent character growth, especially towards the end of the book as he came to understand what Solina went through at his behest.
Thank you so much to NetGalley and Union Square Publishing for the eARC!

Thank you to Union Square/Head of Zeus for the ARC!
I have loved Elodie Harper's writing ever since I devoured the Wolf Den trilogy. I went into this novel knowing I was in for really lush storytelling, pacing, and historical detail, with an amazing story to match. This was, luckily, no different!
What I liked:
-Solina. Thank goodness that she is a character so easily entrancing; she's smart but makes questionable choices, loving, sarcastic, observant, emotive, strong, traumatized (but wizened), and fierce. By the end I was sort of an emotional mess with how expansive her journey is.
-The pacing. I love a chapter that is succinct and keeps the story going. I was not bored once while reading this.
-Historical detail. I always give out bonus points for making me feel as though I am in the room with the characters, and this novel did not disappoint in the slightest. Harper clearly loves the time periods in which she writes, and her knowledge seeps through.
-The timeliness of this book. I can't help but think of how current events informed my reading of this quite a lot; the theme of how colonization destroys families, cultures, etc was top of mind, naturally, but it was handled quite well here.
What I have second thoughts about:
-The more romantic angle that the story evolves into; I am not opposed to it, but I felt that Solina and Paulinus' relationship was slightly marred by the time jumps and what they start out as, leaving me feeling as though their story is a little underdeveloped. I sort of get it, but I don't. And maybe that was the point, to feel a little iffy about them together; maybe my thoughts will change.

Excited for Elodie's next work! This was entertaining and perfect for any historical fiction lover.

I loved Harper’s Wolf Den Trilogy and Boudicca’s Daughter does not disappoint! Going into this, I wasn’t really familiar with Boudicca, but that didn’t take away from the story, though I will be reading up on her now! Harper captures the intricacies of strained mother-daughter relationships well. There were moments between Solina and Catia that were absolutely heart wrenching. Solina’s relationship with Bellenia was well-written too. Solina’s story is one of survival and Harper does a brilliant job of conveying why that is and how Solina adapts to everything around her. This book is tense and at times uncomfortable, but that only adds to its impact. Definitely recommend this!

I received an ARC through NetGalley from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

🛡️✨ ARC Review: Boudicca’s Daughter by Elodie Harper ✨🛡️
Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC! Releasing August 28, 2025, this book absolutely blew me away.

Harper takes the sparse threads of Boudiccan mythology and spins them into a powerful tale of rage, grief, and legacy. We begin with dual perspectives from Boudicca and her daughter, Solina. After Boudicca passes into the afterlife, the story shifts to follow Solina’s life in Rome—and the path she forges for herself in a brutal, patriarchal world.

This is a story of a woman’s strength and survival, of generational trauma, and of vengeance taken perhaps too far. It’s visceral, emotional, and gripping from beginning to end.

✨ Please note: this book contains a depiction of rape. It’s handled with gravity and sensitivity, but readers should go in aware.

🌿 5/5 stars
🗡️ Feminist rage
💔 Vengeance with consequences

If you love historical fiction that centers fierce women and weaves mythology into something deeply human, this one needs to be on your TBR.

I have been waiting for Elodie Harper’s newest book ever since falling in love with The wolf den trilogy. Boudicca’s daughter delivers an emotional follow up centered around the Iceni people and their fight against Rome. If you’re looking for a rich story that is easy to binge, look no further. Elodie Harper makes Rome accessible to read, and her characters jump off the page effortlessly. With a complex love story interwoven with a war this novel had it all. I’m sad it’s over, but I’m glad to have seen the human side of Boudicca and her daughters.

Elodie Harper’s Boudicca’s Daughter presents readers with a riveting historical novel centered on Solina, the youngest daughter of the legendary British rebel queen. Against the turbulent backdrop of Roman-occupied Britain, the narrative traces Solina’s movement from her devastated Iceni homeland to the heart of imperial Rome. The novel stands out for its nuanced portrayal of identity, trauma, and cultural negotiation, and it positions Solina at the intersection of personal loss and political upheaval.

Solina’s character development anchors Boudicca’s Daughter. While her lineage might threaten to confine her, Solina steps out of her mother’s shadow not by duplicating Boudicca’s revolt, but by asserting her own agency. She inherits both her mother’s tenacity and her father’s mystical gifts, yet neither trait determines her fate. Instead, resilience emerges through her navigation of a world that oscillates between the raw lands of the Iceni and the seductive threats of Rome. Supporting figures such as General Paulinus and Solina’s sister Bellenia intensify the narrative, representing the interplay of loyalty, power, and adaptation. Their interactions expose the emotional and ethical costs attached to survival under imperial conquest.

The novel interrogates enduring questions of identity, resistance, and the inheritance of trauma. Harper’s focus on a protagonist who straddles two cultures, her indigenous heritage and her life as a captive in Rome, carefully threads the tension between preserving selfhood and the pressures of assimilation. Solina’s struggle is not just her own but reflects the dilemma of communities subjected to dispossession and domination: how to remember and how to adapt.

Female solidarity and agency stand at the novel’s core. Harper’s attention to sisterhood and the ways women navigate patriarchal oppression aligns with literary and computational analyses that highlight the distinctive qualities of narrative voice and embodiment in fiction. Harper’s prose is vivid and accessive, and emmerses the reader in both the chill of British marshes and the excesses of ancient Rome.

Within historical fiction, Boudicca’s Daughter offers a fresh perspective by focusing on those who inherit legacies rather than those who create them. This perspective invites readers to reconsider well-known histories through the eyes of the marginalized or overshadowed, a practice increasingly valued in both literary and computational research. By foregrounding Solina rather than Boudicca herself, Harper contributes to a more plural and inclusive recounting of history.

Finally, the immersive atmosphere and shifting settings of the novel underscore the fluidity of identity and the historical contingency of power. Harper’s work fits squarely in this tradition, blending historical detail with narrative imagination.

Boudicca’s Daughter is a compelling work of historical fiction that animates questions of survival, legacy, and self-definition against the forces of conquest and erasure. Solina’s journey, shaped by resilience and the refusal to be reduced to her lineage, offers an engaging reading experience that lingers beyond the last page.

By focusing on a “daughter” rather than a “queen,” Harper shifts the lens, allowing new insights into trauma, adaptation, and the enduring tension between memory and assimilation.

Editing notes:
bottom of p. 67 (page 79/442 on NetGalley app): “thebench” missing a space between the two words
bottom of p. 225 (page 237/442 on NetGalley app): “...tribune, whose spear thrust is not strong enough pierce the boar’s…” strong enough to pierce
first sentence of p. 322 (page 334/442 on NetGalley app): missing dash in belongings, which is split between two lines


Review:
As a huge fan of The Wolf Den trilogy, receiving this ARC was huge for me!! Thank you NetGalley, Head of Zeus, and Elodie Harper!

Let’s start with a brief overview of what I enjoyed - Elodie Harper is so immensely talented at extracting stories from women in history who have otherwise been ignored. As someone with no familiarity with Boudicca, Harper managed to bring me right into her world without using excessive historical context. As we spend time with Solina, Harper’s ability to wind factual historical elements with fictionalized personality traits creates a complex character that I couldn’t help but care and root for. Her strengths as a historian and novelist were blatantly apparent in The Wolf Den trilogy, and that is no different for Boudicca’s Daughter. Overall, I enjoyed this read and Harper continues to be an author I will anxiously await new releases from!

Now, to note some elements I struggled with…

Without spoiling anything, it is important to know that this is not only Solina’s story, as the blurb suggests. I feel the constant pivot between Solina’s POV with another primary character’s POV slightly weakened the strength of Solina’s story. I wanted a tale of strength, moral ambiguity, and feminine rage, which was present but dampened by her story’s counterpart. I feel only getting Solina’s perspective would actually heighten the moral ambiguity and complexity of her situation, without having it presented through another character. (Sidenote: I found it odd that, in an introductory author’s note, Harper tells the reader to anticipate moral ambiguity – I would lend more trust to the ability of your reader to understand that war and rage tend to get a bit sticky!)

I would also say the pacing is, at times, inconsistent. I often felt that many of the most notable plot elements were very rushed compared to the more leisurely pacing of the descriptions of Solina’s physical surroundings and the many, many people around her (Sidenote 2: There are SO many names throughout, and it’s hard to know who is supposed to be notable enough to remember.). There is one point towards the end of the book where Rome is flying through emperors and I was confused as to why we were, all of a sudden, lacking concern for the potential imminent fall of the empire. Major historical changes are happening and we really only see our characters observing their aftermath, not experiencing them as they occur. A new chapter would start and we’d have an executed emperor or a primary character in mortal danger and all I wanted to know was, how did we get here?

These thoughts aside, I still want to be very clear that this is an enjoyable read featuring Harper’s consistent ability to weave fascinating characters into captivating moments in history. I would recommend starting with The Wolf Den if you are new to Harper’s writing, and coming to Boudicca’s Daughter if you crave more peril and moral ambiguity.

TW: It is worth noting this book is, unsurprisingly, very violent. Boudicca’s Daughter is largely about (and advertised to be about) war, so I do not fault it for this. I just wanted to note it in my review because I am pretty sensitive to graphic descriptions of violence, and this book definitely features them!

While lengthy, I could definitely see this playing out as a movie. I love the strength and humanity of Solina.

This fabulous historical fiction novel tells the story of the famous warrior Queen Boudicca who was Queen of the Iceni Tribe. She was living proof that a woman could be a standalone ruler. However despite this accomplishment she wasn't successful when it came to putting out a uprising against the ancient roman empire. This story. mainly focuses on her daughter Solina and how she tries to rebuild her life after the death of her family.
Overall I thoight that this was a very facinating story and brought out how brutal it was living in this time period. It was amazing how medieval times it was frowned upon for a woman to be in this sort of leadership role. I will admit there is some triggers of SA against women so please proceed with caution if you are reading this book. Overall I was glad that I took the opportunity to read it.
I received an arc copy from Netgalley and all opinions are of my own.

Elodie Harper once again writes a story that ate without leaving a SINGLE crumb.

Boudicca is an ancient queen of the British Iceni tribe who led a failed uprising against the conquering forces of the Roman Empire (source - this book and Wikipedia). However, this standalone novel chronicles her daughters’ journeys through wartime and subsequent loss.

Basically, Boudicca’s Daughter has everything that makes me love historical fiction: gorgeous writing, nuanced characters and their relationships, lessons of love and loss, scheming and plotting, strong women, violence and war, ANCIENT ROME AND BRITAIN, truly the list goes on.

Love that the story takes place over probably around a decade (this needs fact checking) and is split into multiple parts so we get quick pacing and a substantial plot. In addition, the interludes of third person character perspectives strengthen the overall storytelling.

I think Harper writes about difficult topics in such a sensitive yet realistic way (e.g., grief, physical/emotional/sexual violence, PTSD, survival, revenge, guilt, etc.).

Thank you Net Galley for the arc!

This book was genuinely beautiful. I was initially drawn to this book because of Boudicca’s name, and had no idea what it would be about. Elodie Harper explored an incredibly complicated relationship with such depth and lore. The small triumphs for Solina in continuing her traditions in subtle ways felt so meaningful, and shone a light on such a dark part of our history. Whilst this book is ultimately a love story, it’s not between Solina and paulinus, it was between Solina and her family - especially her mother. This book had me in TEARS. - “dearer than oak” set me off again after Solina birthing her son (without the support of her family), and again at the end. I’ve never read Elodie Harper’s work before, but I will absolutely be recommending this to everyone (and reading everything else she’s ever written).

Whatever Elodie Harper writes, I will read. She could rewrite the dictionary and I would read it. I've been a fan of Elodie Harper since I read The Wolf Den series and fell in love with how she weaves together history and storytelling so beautifully.
Harper transports you to the time she is writing about and you can clearly imagine yourself walking down the streets of Rome. Boudicca's Daughter is no different. You are immersed into the different cities that the story is set whether it is in the saltmarshes or in Rome. Harper's attention to detail and in-depth research make this book feel all the more real. She also has the gift to make you feel what the people in the story feel-she shows rather than tells which a lot of authors have not yet mastered.

I liked the alternating POVs from Solina to Catia to Paulinus and how only Solina's chapters were in 1st person while the others were in 3rd person because ultimately, this is Solina's story and the story focuses on her and what she experiences. How Harper writes about trauma and the aftereffects of it was gutwrenching and you feel the pain that these characters feel and the anger and the hurt.

During the temple burning, Harper is also able to humanize Catia/Boudicca and her daughters and in Boudicca's last moments, she refers to herself as Catia and the mother of Solina.

The relationship between Solina and Paulinus was so beautifully written. The conflict of their feelings for the other, how they're both hurting and seeking solace in the other-it was heartbreaking but beautiful. One thing that really got me was that Solina held onto Paulinus because he knew her as Boudicca's daughter and he knows her past so she holds onto him as one of her last links to who she was before. Also loved how she manipulated him to secure her freedom but how that love grew. She was still very cautious despite Paulinus declaring his love for her and that I understood.

The last 50-60 pages of the book had me STRESSING! MISS HARPER-MY HEART ALMOST STOPPED A COUPLE OF TIMES!!

The last part of the book really got me: Solina, while she loves Paulinus, can never forgive him for what he had done. That really just sat with me. Because I know that had to have hurt him, as it should, worse than if she had rejected him.

Overall, all the stars to this book! I love it and it really played on my heartstrings and now I'm sad it's over. Thank you to NetGalley and Elodie Harper for allowing me to read the ARC!! I can't wait to see what else Elodie has in store!

***advance review copy received from NetGalley in return for an honest review***
Fans of Harper’s previous books, the Wolf Den trilogy, will certainly find a lot to like here as well. We begin in Britain, a Britain mostly conquered by Rome, and here starts our story - the beginnings of Boudicca’s rebellion and how her daughter rises through it, and the choices she must make in order to survive.
At the heart of Harper’s writing are solid characters who are grounded and very real for the reader - we travel through Roman Britain and beyond, and everyone we meet is a fully rounded, fleshed out character who serves to take us further in that journey.
An excellent read, and I’ll certainly be looking out for more from Harper.

4.5 ⭐️s. Anyone who knows me knows that The Wolf Den trilogy is one of my all time favorite series, so when I received an early copy of Boudicca’s Daughter I was absolutely thrilled. Boudicca’s Daughter is about a girl named Solina daughter of Catia (later known as Boudicca) and the rebellion they lead against Rome. It was so great to see a few crossover characters from The Wolf Den (especially Pliny my neurodivergent king 👑 🫶). I love how thought provoking Elodie’s work is. This book specifically dealt with many heavy topics including the realities of war, loss, guilt, and survival. One thing I wasn’t expecting was the romance arc. It’s a very messy romance under the circumstances our characters are in, but it felt so real and believable. The beginning of this book starts quite slowly but you are soon thrown into the action of the story and the ending was so impactful (it left me staring at the wall 😭). Thank you NetGalley, Elodie Harper, and Union Square for the opportunity to read this ARC. Boudicca’s Daughter releases on Aug 28th.

I wasn't sure what to expect from this as I absolutely loved Wolf Den but not so much the books that followed. This was a slow paced read which read a little like non fic in parts but I did really like the relationship between Mother and Daughter and the strong female characters that we encounter. A good read for Historical fic fans!