August 6, 2025 - Reading time: ~1 minute - Category: reviews
The Daughter's War is a sort-of prequel to The Blacktongue Thief, focusing entirely on Galva and filling in her backstory. It's a good novel, with a bunch of fun characters and a bit worldbuilding, but it also feels a bit like a filler story relative to The Blacktongue Thief.
The problem with The Daughter's War is just that there's not a ton of plot here. Galva joins the army, marches, and fights in a few battles. It fills in her story, shows us her motivations, but doesn't tell us too much we didn't already know from reading The Blacktongue Thief.
The battles are genuinely fantastic though. In his acknowledgements the author mentions Christian Cameron being a resource and an inspiration, and it shows here. Cameron writes some of the grittiest, most visceral battle scenes in fantasy and historical fiction, and Buehlman does a good job here as well.
The Daughter's War is my least-favorite Buehlman novel (Between Two Fires remains one of my favorite ever), but it's still a good read, especially if you're invested in the world of The Blacktongue Thief.