The author said that not enough older women are featured in fantasy novels, let alone cast as the main lead. I agree, and that’s what drew me to Daughter of Crows. Never mind the beautiful cover artwork nor that the author is well known for writing dark fantasy novels. It has personally been a while since I actually completed a dark fantasy novel and thought, why not? I was pleasantly surprised at how much fun I had with this novel as it reminded me of my younger years when I read fantasy novels nonstop, one right after another.

So Daughter of Crows is the first of what I believe is a trilogy set. It is a very dark and grimy story in which the majority of female characters are fueled with rage and revenge. It focuses on both the younger and much older years of Rue in which we learn of how she seemed content to live out her remaining years as a simple peasant, to her blazing a trail of dead bodies behind her due to a new war that burned her village to ruin, as well as learning what she had to go through to become a Kindness. If you’re looking for some happy moments to break the dark atmosphere from time to time, you likely won’t find any here.

Each time a story is told regarding children and teenagers training in an academy to become a wizard, sorcerer, or assassin, I conjure up what else but Harry Potter. However, there is no happy ending or any happiness at all here in the academy where young Rue trains to become a Kindness. Out of a hundred female students, only three will survive after 10 years of training. There were some fun scenes during their time here, such as when the girls had to fight their first corpse, along with the time they had to consume the elixir to learn how to control their rage. I was thrilled when necromancy was part of the skillset the students had to learn. I mean, this is a dark fantasy series, and necromancy fits that bill so well.

The world building is quite average, though. The issue is that the majority of the story is focused on a lead character, where each and every location she gets stuck at is basically confined. There is rarely exploration of any kind. Therefore, the world they inhabit can only be understood based on their retelling of a specific lore within the world or through secondhand knowledge. The Rue of old age can sometimes be a bit too much in that there are just too many sections of her complaining about said old age and reliving in her head her previous glory days of becoming a Kindness. Another irritation is how many times Rue gets to cheat death itself. Yes, I understand that is part of the overall theme of the story; it’s one of those where it happens time and again in fights where she comes out of it not just weaker, but actually stronger! This makes the fights she gets into, even in her old age, seem a bit moot and pointless at times because I’m just expecting her to cheat death once again if she gets defeated. At a certain point, I’m wondering if even the ferryman in the story gets tired of seeing her, knowing that she ain’t getting on that boat, again.

Lastly, there looks to be some gap in the history. I believe the academy section stops only when she was in year six. However, it’s supposed to have taken 10 years to become a Kindness. We as the readers only get to learn from a very brief section of what happens to the academy itself later on, but it felt very rushed and unsatisfactory. Rue has basically become a Kindness, but we never learn how, other than her obviously surviving the course. As mentioned earlier, we don’t really get to see firsthand the “glory” days of Rue when she was at the peak of her powers. Maybe this will be saved for book two? Still, Daughter of Crows is a fairly fun read. There are certain things I want to see addressed in the next book though if I am to finish it. If I manage to do so, then it’s likely a given I will also complete and finish the third and final book in the set when it gets published.