Daughter of Redwinter by Ed McDonald

(Gollancz, 2022)

Reviewed by John Dodd

Raine can see dead people, this isn’t a sixth sense, and she’s not the only one that can do it. The book opens on her finding a woman by the side of the road and having to consider if they’ve been dead a while because she can’t see a ghost near the body.

She’s not dead it transpires, but she is on the run, and so Raine helps her because it’s the right thing to do. Or is it? In the first part of the book there’s a fight with an elder god, a death that sets the stage for the true story, and the realisation that the world that Raine thought she knew, is very much not that world. From an encounter with a warrior priest, we learn that some of Raine’s natural talents have been curtailed, supposedly for her own good, and she must find a way to learn what she is truly capable of, and more important, what she wants to be when she finds out.

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Review from BSFA Review 19 - Download your copy here.