Hi everyone
Daughter of Redwinter is the first book in The Redwinter Chronicles by Ed McDonald. This book was a Christmas gift from my parents.
"Those who see the dead soon join them.
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..."
The premise was interesting enough, and I really enjoyed Ed McDonald’s Raven’s Mark series, so I was definitely excited when I received this book. But sadly, it didn’t really work for me.
I found the characters to be quite flat, even the main character didn’t feel like a real person, both before and after she gets an “upgrade.” Yes, she’s unlikeable but that’s not the problem. The problem is her lack of action, how one-dimensional she is, and how her self-pity and passivity slow the plot down.
There’s good action at the beginning and in the last 50 or so pages, but the rest is really, really boring and very slow.
I also felt like all the side characters were very shallow. Every one of them has two or three defining traits, but they’re actually interchangeable. And I hated the focus on Ovitus’ weight, and how it was written like a character flaw.
This is YA, plain and simple: a school setting, lots of drinking, bullying, multiple love interests, enemies-to-lovers, a focuse on people’s looks, attraction, and falling in love. Meanwhile, the threat of what could have happened with the Ciuthach, the politics... it’s all rather glossed over.
The world-building too was mediocre. There wasn’t much special or even captivating about this world and the magic system. I loved the setting; a Scottish Highlands-inspired world, but that was all there was to it. There’s a bit of traveling and we get a touch of history, but I needed more than just a historical fiction-style world. There’s also this veil that separates ghosts and other evil beings from their world, but aside from the ghosts, we don’t see much of those. Where’s the magic part of this book?
I did like the different themes Ed McDonald managed to work into the story; themes I haven’t seen addressed a lot in SFF, like grief, lack of community, and abuse by a mother. That was a genuine strength of the book.
Some of these were not handled well, though. Raine was basically groomed by a man 13 years older, and I’m struggling to understand why this had to be in the book, why they had to be those ages. This didn’t have to be part of her backstory. And Ovitus’ harassment is just excused, even indulged? McDonald invented every aspect of this book; he could have written some things very differently.
I was sadly disappointed in this new series, and I won’t be continuing it. It’s hard to believe this was written by the same author as the Raven’s Mark series.
Have you read Daughter of Redwinter? Did it work better for you, or did you feel the same way? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Happy reading!
Helena
